Natalie Winchester
by Winchestergirl67
Summary: Over four years after meeting her, Dean finally tells Sam that the two of them have a younger sister. And not only that, but she and Dean share an intricate history that Sam had never known about before. Even better, she's on lockdown in a prison psychiatric ward. [set season three]
1. Unknown Lies And Untold Secrets

**Chapter One: Unknown Lies And Untold Secrets**

Throughout his life, there were not a lot of times that Dean Winchester could remember lying to his little brother. Sure, he'd avoided the truth sometimes or told a couple of white lies in his best interest, but that was it. He could probably count on one hand the amount of times that he had outright lied to his face, and even then he had only done it because, at the time, he had thought it to be the best move, or in some way to protect him. There were even less times that he had kept secrets from him, unless he knew that it was something that was really going to upset him, he would usually tell Sam anything that he asked, he would tell him anything that he thought he had a right to know. But some things were different. Sometimes, there were things that just couldn't be told. Whether that was because the right time never came around, or it did and it was missed, or because the subject was too painful or damaging, it didn't matter, eventually those obstacles didn't matter anymore. Things like that had to come out in the end.

There were certain things in the world that just could not, no matter how much heavy though was put into it, be put into words. There were things that just couldn't be said, that couldn't be expected to be understood straight away. Finding a way to word things like that was one of the hardest things anyone could be expected to do.

Dean had been racking his brains for the past twenty-four hours about how he was supposed to tell Sam what he knew he should have told him years before. He knew it was going to hurt him, hurt him that Dean had never told him or that he had never been given the chance to know, but it was too late to go back and change decisions that had been made, no matter how much he wished he could. By this point, the best thing he could think to do was just come right out to his brother and say it, tell him everything and take the fight that was bound to come with it.

With a deep, apprehensive sigh, Dean pushed open the door to the motel room he and his brother were currently occupying. Sam, not to Dean's surprise, was, as usual, sitting surrounded by books and papers. His laptop was open on the bed in front of him as his tired eyes darted from left to right in his continuous research. Since he had found out about Dean's deal, just three days earlier, he had been exactly the same. Dean didn't know how he was supposed to go about it, whether he was supposed to stop him or just let him get on with it. He didn't know what was best anymore. But, right now, that wasn't the most pressing thing on his mind. The deal could wait.

"Hey." Sam muttered as the door closed behind Dean. He didn't bother to look up from his laptop as he spoke, far too deep in concentration.

Dean gave a short nod in his direction and shrugged off his leather jacket. He draped it over the back of one of the chairs and took a deep breath, it was now or never. He couldn't put off telling him forever, he'd already left it four years too long. And Sam wasn't going to be happy about it.

"Look, Sammy," Dean sighed. "You're not gonna like this," he began slowly, never able to bring himself to face him as he spoke. "And I'm sorry for this, I am, but you need to know something. There's no other way I can say this, and I need you to hear me, okay?"

Sam dropped down the pen that he had been twiddling between his fingers and frowned at him, looking completely lost. He slowly closed his laptop and nodded. There were only so many things that Dean could be serious about, and a part of him expected, maybe even hoped, that it would be something to do with his demon deal.

"Okay?" he replied, raising his eyebrows in wait of Dean's response.

Dean wet his lips and looked down at him, green eyes meeting hazel for a moment. "Sam," he paused a second, anxious of his brother's reaction, and sighed. "We have a sister."

Nothing was said, the room filled with a heavy silence. Sam just stared at him, his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His eyebrows were furrowed together in confusion, because there was no way that Dean had just said sister. No chance. He must've heard him wrong.

"A sister?" he repeated incredulously, almost feeling like laughing. He figured that the three days he had gone without sleeping was beginning to have an effect on him. He had to be hearing things.

There was no way that Dean would keep something like that from him, no way, he just wouldn't. Sam slowly pushed himself up from the bed and moved to stand in front of his brother, his eyes never leaving him as he did. He knew his brother, and sure, sometimes he would keep something from him, but that was only in, what Dean thought, his kid sibling's best interest. But there wasn't a chance that he could think there was a way to justify hiding something as big as that, or could he?

Dean just nodded. "Yeah," he cleared his throat. "We have a kid sister." he said quietly. "And, we need to go and get her, you see -"

"A sister?" Sam said again, this time a little more forcefully, not seeming to have registered it the first time. But Dean just nodded again, saying nothing. "And, you know this how, exactly?" he pressed, not sure that he was going to like whatever his brother was about to say.

There was no shock in the way Dean spoke, there was no emotion. He didn't speak as though this was something new to him, as though he was still trying to register the information like Sam was. He spoke about her as though he had already known she existed. Like it wasn't anything shocking or out of the ordinary to him. Sam could tell, Dean had already known.

Dean sighed, he was clearly hesitant to tell him anything. "Dad told me." he answered, almost reluctantly.

"Dad told you?" Sam was more than confused now, the thought that their Dad had known something like that and he had never told them about it, he didn't know what he was supposed to think. But then something else hit him; their Dad had been dead for over a year, Dean had known this whole time and never breathed a word. "When?" Dean's eyes were fixed on the floor, he didn't answer him. "When, Dean?" Sam pushed, his voice hard, demanding an answer from him.

Dean's eyes finally met his again, he looked as though he was nothing but ashamed of what he was about to confess. But Sam already felt betrayed. "Just over four years ago." he muttered.

Sam ran a hand through his hair, he didn't know what to think, never mind what he was supposed to say. "And, what, you never thought to mention this?" he snapped, his voice raised. "After everything you and I have been through, you never once brought it up? You never thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd want to know that I have a sister?!"

"Sammy -" Dean went to stop him, but Sam wasn't having it. He was angry.

Sam realised something else; two of those years Dean had been on his own with their Dad. Sam didn't know what they had been doing all that time, he had never told him much about those years he was at Stanford. "Have you met her?" he asked, not giving Dean a chance to interrupt him. He wanted answers.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, Sammy, I met her." he sighed. Sam could see that he wasn't proud of himself, and that only made him think that there was more to it that Dean wasn't telling him. But Dean seemed to be in a hurry to something, he didn't seem to feel they had the time to talk about it. He was on edge. "Look, I'll explain everything on the way, I promise, but -"

"On the way?" Sam repeated, frowning at him. "On the way, where? Where are we going?"

Dean sighed, defeated, he was going to have to tell him, there was no way around it. Even he had been shocked when he had found out where she was, and he knew her. There was no telling what Sam was going to think about it. "Nevada." he replied simply. "She's in prison." And that was it, Sam's eyes went wide. "Look, Sam, you're angry, you've got a right to be, but trust me, it's a long story. I promise I'll tell you everything, but we have to go. We've let out a demon army, we don't have time to mess around here. We need to get her before these demons make their damn move."

"No, Dean." Sam stood his ground. He wasn't having it. "I want to know." he said bluntly, not seeming to care about anything else. "What's her name? You know, how old is she? What's she like?"

Dean released a deep breath, it was obvious they weren't getting anywhere soon. It wasn't like he blamed Sam for wanting to know about her, he had been just the same when he had first been told about her, but that was a long time ago. That was when Sam should have been told, too. It wasn't fair to have it this way. It wasn't fair that Dean had known and Sam hadn't. And if it had been up to him, he would have been told at the same time.

"Her name's Natalie Scott, and she'll be twenty-two now. She's two years younger than you. She's, uh, she's nice." Dean gave a half smile, he didn't know what he was supposed to say, how he was supposed to describe her to him. "She's a bit of a tearaway, always has been, good at getting herself into trouble with the cops. Her upbringing was a little, shall we say, rough. But, she's smart, you know? She's tough, brave, definitely has my looks," he added lightly, making an attempt at getting his brother to crack a smile. "But, she's stubborn as hell, can definitely hold her own." He shook his head slowly. "She's one of those people, she acts like she couldn't care less but, she'd do anything to help someone who needed it."

Sam listened to him, he couldn't understand it. There was nothing but fondness in Dean's voice as he spoke about her, he could see that he obviously cared about her, a lot. There was something about the look on his face; filled with regret and sorrow, that made Sam think something had gone wrong between them. He figured it must have done, or else why would they not still be together?

"You sound like you know her pretty well." Sam said bluntly, he didn't even try to hide the accusation in his tone. Dean knew this girl, and he knew her well enough that it told Sam they hadn't just spent a weekend together.

Dean shrugged, acting as though it wasn't important. "Kinda," he replied. "We spent some time together a while back, not a big deal."

"Some time?" Sam repeated, he couldn't understand why Dean didn't want him to know, unless he knew it was going to bother him. "How long is 'some time', Dean? A week? A month? Two moths?"

Dean shook his head, and sighed. "Couple of years." he muttered, he now sounded ashamed of himself, because they both knew it wasn't fair.

Sam blinked, taken aback. Dean had spent two solid years with their sister, he had been with her all that time and he had never once mentioned her name. "You spent two years with our sister and you didn't think to even tell me that we had one?" Sam's voice was low, he didn't sound angry anymore, he sounded hurt. "What the hell, Dean?"

There was something else bothering him, perhaps more than the fact Dean hadn't told him. He wanted to know why Dean hadn't told him about her. There must have been a reason, even after Dad, that had stopped him. It was clear that Dean cared for her, and he assumed that she must have cared about him to spend two years hunting with him. Something had happened with them. He couldn't work out why Dean would allow her to walk out of his life. Unless, he hadn't.

"Why did she leave?" Sam asked him, almost hesitantly, a knowing look on his face. He could tell that Dean didn't want to tell him about what had happened, it was obvious, but he needed to know, a part of him felt guilty that he hadn't been there to see it first hand. He knew the fact that he had left didn't excuse Dean keeping it from him, but he had to feel partly responsible.

"We had a fight." Dean shrugged simply. "It didn't work out, and she left. There's nothing more to it. I figured it was just easier to leave it at that."

There was a sadness in his eyes, like he hadn't wanted to think back to that time. If she had turned her back on him and left, there was no question that it still hurt him to think about. Sam could tell when he had come back from Stanford that Dean was still hurt about him leaving in the first place, no matter how hard he worked to cover it all up. There weren't a lot of things he could keep from his younger brother, despite how good he thought his poker face was.

"Why now?" Dean looked up at him at that question, not following. "Why do you wanna go find her now? It's been, what, nearly two years?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know, Sam," he sighed. "Because, I got a year to live. I don't wanna leave you here with no one."

That statement hit Sam like a punch in the face. "Are you saying that she's supposed to be some kind of replacement to you?" he asked, sounding insulted at the thought.

"No, no, I'm saying," Dean stopped, shaking his head, he didn't know what he meant. "You needed to know about her, Sam. And time's running out for me to tell you. I get that I should have told you about her years ago, but I can't change that. So I'm telling you now, because you deserve to know."

Sam moved to sit down on the edge of the bed with a deep sigh, it was too much for him to take in at once. "How did she even end up with you in the first place?" he asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, did she come find you or did you find her?"

Dean shook his head. "She was only seventeen when I met her. Her Mom died, so she called Dad, I think she'd only met him a couple of times before that but, still," he shrugged. "Dad dragged us down there to get her, told me everything on the way there, said he was just gonna help her out and we'd be gone."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "So, what happened?"

"He went to meet her, ended up bringing her back to the motel with him, told me that I was supposed to train her up and make her a hunter. And, I agreed." Sam looked a little surprised at that. "I mean, Dad was starting to bail more and more the older I got, and I didn't feel right having her out on her own somewhere, especially with her record. So I took her with me, and eventually we started hunting together." He looked down, thinking over his next statement carefully. "A couple weeks after she left, I got that voicemail from Dad, that's when I came to get you."

"Dean, this girl is twenty-two, right? She's been out of this for two years now." Dean raised an eyebrow at him, as though he wasn't following. "We've just opened the gates to hell and started a friggin' war, you have a year to live, and you wanna pull her back into that?"

Dean looked down for a moment. He knew it was selfish, he knew it was going to be dangerous, but it had to be better than where she was now. Honestly, he missed her. He had always missed her. And, this time, he'd had enough. He knew he at least had to try with her, even if she didn't want to see him.

"She's a good hunter, Sam." Dean stated simply. "She knows what she's doing out there. Hell, she saved my ass enough times in the past."

Sam shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

"I know," he muttered. "But, I wanna make it right, Sam. And, face it, she's your little sister, too. You should know her. She's a good kid. She doesn't deserve to be where she is."

Hell, that was another story he was going to have to tell, he was going to have to explain why she wasn't just in prison. He was going to have to explain why she had ended up on lockdown in a prison psychiatric ward, about how they were going to have to break her out of maximum security without getting caught themselves. Dean knew there were a lot of things that Sam still wanted to know. He was going to want to know about the fight they'd had, about the two years they had spent hunting together, about why she had left. He was going to ask how they even had a sister in the first place, what had happened between her and their Dad. And Dean knew he was going to have to explain it all.

But, despite how Sam felt, even Dean didn't know what they were supposed to do when they actually came face to face with her. He wasn't completely sure that she would talk to him, he had a good idea that she wouldn't be overjoyed to see him again. But finding her was something that they had to do, and Sam knew it, too, even if he was still a little wary.

"So, whaddaya say, huh?" Dean coaxed, a small smile on his face. "You in?"

Sam sighed, clearly defeated, and looked up at him. "Which prison is she in?"

At that, a grin spread across Dean's face.


	2. Meet The Sister

**Chapter Two: Meet The Sister**

_The next day; 12:23pm, Nevada. _

Dean released a deep breath as he cruised the Impala to a stop just around the corner from the prison, he wasn't sure for a second that their plan was going to work, in fact, he was pretty damn skeptical about the whole thing. But there wasn't a lot that they could do about it now, there was no turning back this time, it had to be done.

"Alright," he turned off the engine with a heavy sigh. "You ready?" he asked, turning to face Sam.

"Yeah," Sam replied quietly. "I'm ready."

He didn't know what he was supposed to be ready for. Did that mean he was supposed to be ready to break someone out of a maximum security prison, or that he was ready to meet his little sister for the first time in his life? He didn't know, he wasn't sure that he was ready for either. But before he could think to register anything more, Dean was already halfway out of the car and straightening his suit jacket and tie.

Sam sighed and climbed out of the car, shaking his head slowly. This was all just completely new to him, he was still trying to process the fact that they even had a sister in the first place, never mind the fact that Dean had hunted with her for two solid years and never mentioned her name again after that. He didn't understand what had happened between them, and Dean didn't look as though he was going to share it anytime soon.

"Remember the plan?" Sam only nodded, saying nothing. "Good, let's go then."

Dean went first, taking a deep breath. There wasn't a clear thought in his head, not anymore. He had been relatively okay with what they were doing, he hadn't thought too much into it. But the long drive had given him time to think about it, about every little detail that he didn't want to. There was the chance, the very likely chance, that she was still going to be angry at him, she might not even want to see him. And then there was the fact that she had been in prison for a year and a half, he didn't know what she was going to be like. What if she'd changed? What if she wasnt the same girl he remembered her to be, then what? He'd gotten it into his head that she was going to come back and they would go right back to how they had been before, but now he realised that he had been being naive. There was no guarantee of that, he didn't know what to expect.

* * *

The two of them were led down a hallway and directed to an office within the prison, the door was already wide open. There was a man sitting behind the desk, looking to be in his sixties, impatient, with grey hair and glasses. He looked up as they approached him, eyebrows raised as if to ask them what they wanted, and sighed as he pushed himself up from his chair reluctantly.

Dean headed inside first, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for his fake ID. "Agents Smith and Connors, FBI." He said firmly, nodding to his left as he introduced Sam, staring blankly at the man in front of them. "We need to speak with you about one of your inmates, Natalie Scott." he added simply, returning the badge to his jacket.

The man blinked, and then nodded, gesturing to the two empty seats at the other side of his desk. Sam and Dean sat down as the officer heaved a sigh, shaking his head slowly, and dropped down into his seat again. "Natalie Scott." he muttered to himself, he sounded weary and tired at just the mention of her. "How can I even begin to describe Natalie Scott?" He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips and thumb, pinching the bridge of his nose as though he was in some kind of physical pain.

Sam glanced to Dean, whose face wore the same completely confused expression as his, and then looked back to the officer, who appeared to be lost with pondering the answer of his own question. None of them spoke for a moment, the silence creating a tension throughout the small office room. Both brothers were apprehensive, there was no denying that, but playing it cool was their job, it was what they had to do. They couldn't afford to give anything away. Not to mention that they were both wanted by the FBI themselves, they were sitting in a very risky position. They both knew that if they were to be recognised they wouldn't be walking out of the building as free men, but the man in front of them seemed to have more pressing matters on his mind.

He sat back in his chair and sighed again. "I'll tell you one thing about her; I had a straight nose before she came into this place." Sam narrowed his eyes at the man's face, noticing where there was a slight bend in his nose, giving the impression that it had been broken at some point in his life. "Managed to break my nose with both hands cuffed behind her back. That's the kind of girl you're dealing with here." Sam coughed to cover the small chuckle that escaped Dean at his words, shooting a glare his way. "You ask me, she's had some kind of training before she's gotten in here. You know, fight training."

"Right." Dean cleared his throat, straightening himself up a little. "Uh, when exactly did she come down here? Our supervisor was a little sketchy on the details."

The man shook his head as he thought about it. "Just over two months ago. She's been up in Woodbridge prison, just down the road from here, for about fifteen months before that. She was sent down here for stabbing a fellow inmate in the heart and killing her. And we're not talking small either, this woman was about three times her size."

"And that had her put on a prison psychiatric ward?" Sam questioned. "How come she wasn't just sent to a more secure prison?"

"Well, there was some talk of her saying something while she was murdering the other inmate, some other language." Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "They said she was into devil worship or something, wanted to send her down here for a while to keep an eye on her, see how she reacted. But, honestly, once you come down here there isn't a lot of them that get out again. You're either crazy when you come down or this place makes you crazy."

Sam shook his head slowly. "And, does she have a record of getting into trouble? You know, how much time is she supposed to be in here for?"

"I know that she was sent down to the Special Handling Unit a few times, violence, drugs found in her stuff, I think once she was caught threatening to kill someone.." he trailed off, shaking his head. "She's a colourful character, can definitely be a handful."

"Well," Dean cut in brightly. "You might be happy to hear that she's being transferred. Now."

The officer blinked, seeming taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, sir, emergency transportation to a secure government facility, she's needed for another investigation." The man went to open his mouth but Dean continued before he had the chance to object. "We have a warrant here and you can call our supervisor on this number if you have any questions." he added lightly, dropping a card down onto the desk and handing over a bunch of fake documents.

"Whatever you say, agent." he said, seeming a little skeptical as he reached for the card, eyeing Dean suspiciously.

"Great, well, like I said, our supervisor was a little sketchy on her details." Dean stated simply, like there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. "Think you could give us a quick overview of her sentences, just procedure?"

The officer sighed, like Dean's request was nothing but extra work for him, and nodded. He pushed himself up from his desk and crossed the room to a filing cabinet, opening up the top drawer and flipping through a few of them before he found what he was looking for. He pulled out one of the files and moved back behind his desk, dropping down heavily as he flipped open the file.

His eyes scanned over it slowly, like it was already so familiar to him. "Uh, well she first started getting herself into trouble when she was a teenager. She was in and out of juvy from the age of fourteen, things like fighting, stealing, involved with the wrong crowd, that kinda thing. Her crimes started getting more and more serious as she got older, she was getting herself into things that she shouldn't have been, the cops were keeping an eye on her, you know? Looked like she was fast heading to jail when she turned eighteen. But then she seemed to straighten herself out, no one heard from her in about two years, no bookings, no charges, nothing. I've been her councillor since she's been in here and, no matter how many times I've asked, she won't say where she was all that time. Anyway, by the time she twenty she had a job working for a drug smuggler, pretty serious stuff. The whole gang was busted when she was twenty-one, she's been in prison since then, that was about a year and a half ago." He flipped the file closed and shrugged. "I guess the solitude finally got to her, she cracked, had some kind of a breakdown and killed someone."

Neither Sam or Dean said anything for a moment, both thinking through everything he had said carefully. It was too much to take in all at once, just one long list of information and no explanations, they needed to talk to her properly.

"Do you, uh," Sam paused, thinking his words through carefully. "Do you think that she did it? The murder, I mean."

"Well, being completely honest with you, I thought when she came down here that she seemed relatively normal. A lot of the women who are sent down here are either insane or dangerous. Natalie seemed fine, she sometimes had a bit of an attitude about her, but most people in prison do. I did her initial assessment and I can tell you now, I didn't believe that she was capable of killing someone, not without reason. I've dealt with plenty of murderers in the thirty years I've worked here, I just don't think that she's the cold-blooded type." he said with a shrug. "But, you know, I'm not in charge of who's in and out of here, I just sign the papers."

"Right," Dean cleared his throat. "Well, we'd like to have a quick chat with her before we move her anywhere, give her an idea of what's going on."

"Sure," he nodded. "I'll be sure to give that supervisor of yours a call while you do. Wait here, I'll get her ready."

They both nodded, saying nothing as he moved across the room towards the door, leaving the two of them alone there. Neither spoke, neither knew what to say. Dean had an idea that his brother was still pretty pissed off at him for not telling him about Natalie, and he didn't blame him for that, but he had always figured it better for him not to know.

"So," Sam began brightly, his tone light. "From the sound of that, the only time she managed to keep herself out of trouble was when she was with you and Dad." He glanced up at his brother. "The two of you must've been pretty close."

Dean shrugged. "We got on okay, I guess." he muttered, not seeming to want to talk about it, especially not there.

Truth was, they had been close. In the two years they had spent together they had been unbeatable, nothing could have come between them, with the exception of each other. The fight that they had gotten into had ended all of it, and that had been the last time they had seen each other. There was no denying they had both said things that they hadn't meant, they'd let things go way too far, and they were both too stubborn to apologise, so they had gone their separate ways. And that was when Dean had gone to get Sam from Stanford. And he would have told him, but the thought that she was so mad at him meant that he wasn't sure she would even give Sam a chance. He knew that there was a chance, if he were to show up at her door with Sam, her anger at him would cause her to completely bypass Sam, and he wasn't putting his kid brother through that.

"What happened between you, Dean?" Sam pressed. "I know you said you had a fight, but what kind of a fight makes the two of you never want to see each other again? I mean, you obviously still care about her, or you wouldn't be here, right?"

The door opened behind them before Dean had a chance to even think of an answer. They turned as the man from before looked between them. "Follow me, gentlemen."

Dean sighed, shooting a quick glance Sam's way. He appeared calm, completely fine, but Dean had an idea that it was just a front. He remembered when he had first met his sister, he hadn't known what to think, and he'd had longer to let the news sink in than what Sam had. Dean hadn't had to meet her in a prison, pretending to be an FBI agent. He couldn't even imagine how this felt for his brother.

* * *

_Four years earlier_

Dean looked up as the door to the motel opened, his Dad walked inside first, followed by a young girl. He wasn't prepared for this, he had only found out two days ago that he even had a sister, and now he was supposed to meet her and not be the slightest bit taken aback, news like that didn't just process like that, it took time. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to think about it. The fact that she had known about them for years didn't make him feel any better about it, he almost felt betrayed, stunned that his own Dad had kept something like that from him. He had a right to know. As well as that, there was the fact that, just over a year after his wife's death, he had gone and gotten another woman pregnant and not even thought twice about her. He had said himself, he hadn't had a clue about her until after she had turned fourteen, and even then he hadn't done much for her. If Dean had known, he would like to think that he would have done something more for her. But he couldn't say, because he had never been told about her. And that was on his Dad.

He looked her over as she walked through the door, their Dad closing it behind her and standing beside her, his hand rested on her shoulder. "Dean, this is Natalie, your little sister." he said calmly, looking anxious of how Dean was going to react.

They'd talked about it, sure, John had told him everything he knew about her. He had told her about the trouble she got herself into throughout her teenage years, he told him about the times she had been sent into Juvenile detention and what she had done to get herself there. He had told him about the one night stand he'd had with her mother, and about how she hadn't told him he even had a daughter until she had gone fourteen. He knew about how their Dad went down to see her when he found out and how he had told her everything about what their family did, and how it had resulted in a fight and her never wanting to see him again. And then he had told him about how John had given her a phone number and told her that if she ever changed her mind she should call him. And nearly four years later, within a week of her mother dying, she had called, and John had dropped everything to go and get her. And now there she was.

Natalie stared at him, like she wasn't sure what she was supposed to say, or how he was about to react to her, she looked uneasy. She wore black lace up boots and dark jeans with a light grey t-shirt that showed off the detailed sleeve tattoo down her left arm. There was thick black eyeliner around both her eyes and a nose stud that shone when it caught the sunlight through the window. Her black hair was pulled back, showing off the silver studs that went all the way down one of her ears. She looked like some kind of a punk-rock rebellious teenager. Dean couldn't help but smile a little at that. She wasn't at all what he had been expecting.

"It's, uh," he paused, thinking over what he was supposed to say, because he sure as hell didn't know. "It's good to meet you." he said, smiling at her.

Truthfully, it was. When he had first been told that he had a little sister he felt as though he had missed out. This girl was almost eighteen, and that was eighteen years of her life that he had missed. It was eighteen years she had gone without having her real family around, without having her two brothers and her Dad there to watch her back for her. There was the thought that something could have happened to her, the idea that it only took one demon to find her or one creature out looking for revenge on the family to find her and she was done. Knowing that they could have spent so much more time together if only their Dad had told them the truth when he had found out himself, it hurt him. And now that she was finally there, Sam was gone. And for the first time in two years, Dean had spoken his name in front of their Dad. He had argued and told him that Sam needed to know, that he needed to meet his little sister the same as he did, that he at least needed to know. But the answer was always the same, Sam had walked and he had turned his back on the family, and that meant her, too.

Natalie stepped forwards and dropped her bag down to the floor beside one of the beds with a thud, turning back to him. "It's good to meet you, too." she said simply. Her voice was soft, almost timid, not a voice that reflected her look at all.

Both Dean and Natalie turned to John, like he was going to give them some kind of instruction of what they were supposed to do, because they were both clearly as lost as each other. Dean wasn't sure about her and she wasn't sure about him. They both seemed as wary as the other.

John cleared his throat and looked between them slowly. "Listen, there's a hunt that I need to take care of," he began, but Dean already knew where it was going, and he wasn't sure he liked it. "I'll be back in a few days, I'll call if it's any later." he said simply, not sounding at all concerned that he was leaving two complete strangers alone with each other and expecting them to just get on with it.

"And, uh, what, exactly, are we doing while you're gone?" Dean asked, stepping forwards and looking at his Dad in a way that John knew he was asking silently for answers.

John said nothing for a moment, just looked between them once again. "She's your responsibility, Dean." he said bluntly. "You're gonna train her. You're going to teach her everything about this life and you're going to make sure she's ready to handle herself out there."

Dean blinked, that had been the last thing he had been expecting to hear. He glanced from their Dad to Natalie, who appeared less concerned with it, and assumed that the two of them must have agreed on those terms before they had arrived there. It wasn't like it bothered him, it didn't, he wanted to get to know her, of course he did, but she wasn't a hunter. She didn't have to be trapped in this life the same as they were. He had watched Sam so desperately try to get away from it, he wasn't sure that she knew what she was getting into with it.

But Dean said nothing, just nodded in response. "Yes, sir." he said simply, an automatic response that came with him when he was given an order by their Dad.

"Good." John said simply, giving them a small smile. "I'll see you in a few days, call me if you get into trouble." he said lightly before he turned and headed out of the room, leaving the two of them standing in an awkward silence.

"So," Dean began lightly, giving a deep breath, he didn't have a clue what to say. Natalie raised her eyebrows at him, like she was only amused with the situation. "Nice tat." he remarked, causing her to smirk wider.

"Thanks." she said simply, moving to sit down in one of the chairs at the table.

Dean followed her movements and sat down opposite her, watching her closely. He was still in shock, the whole thing seemed completely surreal to him, having a little sister was just something he had never thought of before. But now that she was sitting in front of him, looking up at him expectantly, he realised how much he really had been missing out on. There was eighteen years of her life that he hadn't been with her, he knew nothing about this girl. With Sam, he knew everything; he knew his favourite food, colour, movie, book, everything, right down to the shampoo and toothpaste he used. A part of him felt a little guilty that he didn't know her. At least, not yet.

And, in time, he had learned everything about her. In time, he knew her every facial expression and every movement, he understood all of her moods and knew everything from her past. He knew the meaning of every single tattoo, scar, cut and bruise on her body, he knew her right down to her brand of eyeliner and her sleep patterns. At some point during the many hours a day they had spent working together, whether that was him teaching her to drive or telling her stories about monsters, or whether it was her kicking his ass during training or telling him about the different messes she had gotten herself into during her past, they had learned to completely trust each other. And that didn't changed, not for a long time.

* * *

_Present_

Natalie Scott wasn't someone who let things wear her down. She wasn't someone who would let a bad situation get the best of her, she would fight herself back to the top and make sure she stayed there. But this time it was different. This time, she couldn't get out. She was too far down. She was lost, hopeless, breaking.. And that wasn't who she was. It wasn't who she was supposed to be.

Prison had never been that bad, she had been okay in there, she survived and kept her sanity. But this place wore her down like nothing ever had done before. It was beyond her rock bottom, and she was drowning in it. There was no way out. But then, that was the point.

There were people that she had met in prison, people who'd had their dates come around and their freedom in sight, and she had envied them because she wanted out. There were the ones who had counted down the days to their release, they'd cried with happiness at the idea of leaving and had all but ran from the place. But then there were the others, the ones who didn't want to leave. She had always thought it to be a myth; the cliché of becoming so integrated into prison life that they didn't want to leave, but she had seen people who had become destroyed by their time in there, people who had become so overwhelmed by the idea of being outside, being away from the same dull walls, that it had caused them to fall apart. She had seen just the idea of freedom be enough to cause the strongest inmates to fall apart at the seams. There had been the ones who could have a complete psychotic break at the yearning to remain in the solitude of jail, but that wasn't her.

Natalie had never, ever, been able to understand those people.

Every single day had been the same since she had been moved down there. They were almost identical, all merged into one big, depressive mess. It was the same routine, day in and day out. It never changed. The same sleep pattern of about an hour or two a night, lying in silence and staring up at the black ceiling as though it held the answers to the world. It was eating the same tiny portion of barley edible food at the same time, as if they made sure it was delivered to the precise second each time. It wasn't like she would have realised anyway, there were no clocks anymore, no windows, the lights were always on in the hallway; there was no way at all to tell when one day began and another day ended.

Natalie used to keep a track of it, she would remember the amount of times they had served breakfast or the amount of times she'd had the daily visit from the woman who stuck needles into her arm to give her drugs that knocked her out. But in time, she had lost it, she no longer knew. By day ten she was done. Maybe that was when she still had full control of her own mind, before the same four walls that she stared at constantly started to blur into nothingness, before the voices in her head became louder and angrier and clearer.

She had no idea how long she had been down there now. There was just one thing that she did know, and that was that the place she now lived was killing her. Slowly. It was gradually ripping away the person she was, pulling her away from her own sanity. The thoughts of comments made in prison when the topic of psych had come up, things like 'no one ever makes it back out of psych' or 'once you go down, you never come back', they never left her head. She didn't think she would ever see the light of day again. She had never thought anything could make her miss prison so much, but she had found it there. And a part of her knew that she wasn't getting out of there again, not alive anyway.

The sound of the small window of the door being slammed open made her jump. The constant silence was broken for only the second time that day, it had been that way since the small portion of food was pushed through the door at breakfast time. The door was then pulled open, two officers coming to a stop no further than a step into the small room.

"Scott." A hard voice echoed through the room. "Get up." Natalie gave a deep, tired sigh but moved to stand up, looking between them slowly. "Turn around. Slowly."

Natalie did as they said, not questioning them, she figured just another meeting with her warden, maybe someone had named her and she was going back to trial, maybe there was about to be a change in her sentence, but somehow she couldn't care less where they were taking her. She wasn't even curious anymore.

A pair of cold handcuffs were slapped onto her wrists, tightened to the point that the metal was digging into her skin. "You know the drill, Scott, don't try anything funny." The other man said to her, his tone just as harsh.

"Wouldn't dream of it." she muttered, not even bothering to force the sarcasm into her tone, her energy was wearing thin, it didn't seem worth it anymore. After a while, the snarky and sarcastic comments wore thin, they didn't get her anywhere.

It was the standard procedure, visitors meant cage. And that's where they were heading. The only thing she could think now was that it was going to be bad news, she hadn't spoken to anyone in over a week now. A month or two ago, she probably would've cared, she would have been wondering who it was. Now, she couldn't even bring herself to fake interest.

* * *

Sam and Dean followed the officer down the empty hallway, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls around them. It was a depressing place, unimaginable to spend so much time there, even as much time as their sister had done. It seemed unthinkable. Sam remembered when the few days he and Dean had spent in prison had felt like forever, he couldn't imagine spending as much time in there as she had done.

They were led into another room; it was small and dull. There was a desk to one side, an empty chair behind it and papers scattered across it. In the center of the room there was a metal cage, not even wide enough for a person to lie down in. The girl standing in the centre looked between them slowly, appearing apprehensive. Sam looked at her, but her bright green eyes were focused solely on Dean. Her pale face stood out against her jet black hair, straight and a little longer than her shoulders. She wore an orange jumpsuit, folded at the elbows and showing off the sleeve tattoo that covered her left arm. She appeared as though she was holding her breath, her face the picture of complete shock.

"Scott, FBI here to speak with you." The officer said to her, but the words didn't seem to register with her at all, her eyes still hadn't left Dean's.

"Jesus Christ," Natalie scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. "This is all I fucking need." she muttered, seeming more to herself than to anyone else.

Sam just turned back to the officer, not appearing phased. "We can take it from here, thanks." he said, pushing up a tight smile.

"Fine." The man nodded. "Think I might go give that supervisor of yours a call while you're in here." he said simply, turning his back to them and heading out of the room, leaving the three of them alone. They both turned back to face her as the door closed behind him, leaving them in a tense silence.

"So?" she pressed, seeming impatient. "The fuck do you want?"

It was obvious looking between them that there was still some kind of anger lingering from their fight, and Sam still wanted to know what it had been about. She looked angry at him, yet he didn't seem as mad as before, he just looked frustrated.

"Mind your language for a start." Dean commented simply, raising his eyebrows at her, he had remembered her having an attitude, just not with him.

Natalie just rolled her eyes at him. "What the hell do you want, Dean?"

"Calm down," Sam stepped forward, he could see the two of them become riled up quickly, the last thing they needed was another fight breaking out between them. "We're just here to help you, alright?" he said calmly.

"I don't need any help." she muttered, her tone hard and defensive, her eyes never leaving Dean as she spoke. "I'm doing just fine."

"Doing just fine?" Dean repeated incredulously, fast becoming annoyed with her. It was as though Sam wasn't even standing there. "Look at yourself, Natalie, you're in a friggin' cage. You're on a psychiatric prison ward for the mentally unstable and looking at life imprisonment for murder. You're not doing just fine at all."

"You know I didn't do it, Dean." she said, her voice turning completely serious. Even if she was acting like she didn't care, she was looking at him in a way that almost pleaded with him to believe her. "You know I wouldn't do something like that."

"No, I know." he said simply. "You might be a lot of things, Nat, but I know you're not a killer. You still have to explain it once we're out of here, though, and I will listen to everything you have to say. I'll let you scream and bitch at me, whatever, but right now I need you to drop the attitude and work with me."

"Out of here?" she questioned, looking at him like he was insane.

"Don't look at me like that, why else do you think we're here? This isn't a casual visit, kid. You need help."

And that was it, enough to turn her defensive again. "I need help? You assume I want your help." Natalie took a step closer to the bars, narrowing her eyes at him. "And what, exactly, are you gonna do, huh? What, wave your fake federal agent badge around and bust my ass out of here? Hm? What do you want, Dean?"

Dean was physically taken aback by the response, frowning at her. "Yes, actually." he replied simply. "That was the plan."

Natalie blinked, like it had been the last thing she had expected him to say. "Excuse me?"

Dean smirked at her. "Don't you want out?"

"Depends," she narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you want in return? Money? What?"

"Nothing, why don't you just think of it as your big brother doing you a favour out of the goodness of his heart and leave it at that, yeah?" he said sarcastically. "Besides, you're not really in a position to turn down help right now, are you?"

Natalie looked down for a moment, thinking it through. He was right, there wasn't any other way out of there, it wasn't like her sentence could get any longer. She was sure as hell not get getting released from there anytime soon, maybe he was her best chance. Once she was out with them she could run, she didn't have to stay with them, but at least she would be away from prison. The best thing she could think to do at that point was keep her mouth shut and let them get her out.

"Fine," she looked up at him and nodded. "I'm in."

Dean smirked at her. "That's my girl." he grinned, a look which she couldn't hold back a smile of her own to.


	3. Pretend Like You're Angry

**Chapter 3: Pretend Like You're Angry**

_Impala, 5:45pm_

Sam glanced up from the book on his lap to his brother, whose eyes were completely focused on the road ahead, never looking away. Neither he, Natalie, or Dean had spoken once since they had left the prison. It had been a case of do everything they could to get Natalie out of there, lie and keep their heads down, say the right things at the right times, and then, before he knew it, they had all been climbing into the Impala and Dean had slammed down on the gas before anyone could realise what was happening. That had been four and a half hours ago, and so far no one had even made an attempt at breaking the silence.

Sam had thought maybe he should say something, but then he thought that he didn't know how bad things really were between them. He didn't know the true extent of how angry Natalie and Dean truly were with each other, or if they were going to make up anytime soon. Neither of them seemed willing to speak to the other. They hadn't once looked at each other since they had left the prison, and Sam still couldn't understand why. All Dean had told him was that the two of them had gotten into an argument and gone their separate ways, he was starting to think that maybe it hadn't just been some petty disagreement, it seemed like they were completely done with each other.

Although, it was like a part of him knew that couldn't be true. There had to still be something there between them, whether it was just family obligation to love each other or something more, he didn't know, but he knew that she wouldn't be sitting in the backseat if there wasn't. Dean would never have gone back for her if he didn't care, and she wouldn't have gone with them. They obviously still had some kind of bond between them, even if it was strained.

But Sam figured it best to just stay out of it, at least for now. Dean seemed to be the one in charge at the moment, and he was more than happy to keep it that way. He glanced back in the rearview mirror at the girl sitting behind them in the orange jumpsuit, but said nothing. What could he say? He didn't know. So he kept his mouth shut and continued reading through his book, looking for a way to break his brother's deal.

Both Sam and Natalie looked up as Dean pulled up the Impala with an abrupt halt, neither of them having realised that he had even turned off they highway. But, sure enough, there was nothing else around them. The area seemed pretty secluded, out of the way of anything else. Other than the decrepid building in front of the car, there seemed to be no sign of life anywhere. No cars, no people, no houses, nothing. It was remote.

"You sure you wanna stop yet?" Sam asked warily, glancing up at the motel ahead of them. Even if Dean had found somewhere so remote, he had still found it. That means that a cop could probably stumble across it too.

Dean just shrugged, not appearing concerned about it in the slightest. "Well," he began brightly. "This motel has got to be that far off the map that it's gonna be the last place the cops would look for anyone, and besides, they're probably expecting us to keep going, if they've actually realised we weren't legit yet. They'll probably be checking out all her old hangouts first, anyway." he stated simply, turning slightly in his seat to look at her. "This isn't a regular spot of yours, is it, Nat?" Natalie said nothing, only glared at him. She was pretty sure that he was in the mood where he would do all he could just to provoke her. "Thought not." He turned back to Sam with a smile. "Let's go."

Natalie shook her head at his attitude, already feeling like punching him in the face, but did as he said. She followed him and Sam to the front desk and hung outside while they checked them in, thinking it best not to walk in there wearing her prison gear. Neither said a word as they left and headed to their room, the one furthest away from the reception room, she wasn't sure if that was coincidence or not. She followed them inside and closed the door behind herself quietly, leaning her back against it.

Sam dumped the bags down on the floor and looked between them slowly as he took a seat in one of the chairs at the table. Dean stood in the center of the room, his arms folded over his chest, as though he was waiting for her to say something to him, but she didn't. She remained silent where she was, hands shoved in her pockets, and held his gaze, never flinching.

Eventually, a smile cracked at the corner of Dean's lips, something which only seemed to confuse her. She frowned at him, like she was silently asking for an explanation as to what he could possibly be finding to smile about in their current situation.

"This is Sam, by the way." he said simply, nodding his head in the direction of his younger brother. "Sammy, this is Natalie."

The two of them exchanged a short glance, before they both looked back to Dean. Natalie appeared to have lost her patience with him. There didn't appear to have been that much of it in the first place, but now she looked as though she wanted to hit him. There was clearly still bad blood between them, and Sam was getting the impression that it was her who was still holding the grudge, not Dean.

"What the hell do you want, Dean?"she asked bluntly, her tone completely blank.

Dean scoffed, letting his arms drop to his sides. "That's a funny way to say thank you for busting your ass out of a prison psych ward," he countered. "You're welcome." he added sarcastically.

"I haven't seen you in over two years, Dean. No phone calls, no texts, nothing." she retorted, taking a step closer to him. "If you wanted to bust my ass out of prison you'd have done it months ago. The fact that you show up now, out of the blue, means you want something. What is it?"

Sam knew every expression his brother had, and right now, Dean was at a loss. He didn't know what to say to her, because he couldn't tell her the truth. She was right, they hadn't spoken in over two years, and they hadn't left it on great terms, he could hardly turn around to her and tell her that he had a year to live. He could only imagine how that would go down. Instead, he composed himself, and shook his head.

The smile held on his face as he contemplated his answer. "You haven't changed, have you?" he said lightly, he looked as though he couldn't have cared less about what she had said to him. "Listen, Natalie, I didn't know you were in prison, okay? If I'd have known that I would've come and gotten you a long time ago. Hell, you could have picked up a phone, too." He stopped himself, knowing he was getting worked up, and took a breath. "The fact is, we're all family here, and yeah, you and I had our differences, but that doesn't change anything."

Natalie just looked at him, as though she couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "What, do you think we're all gonna play happy families now? That we're all gonna gank monsters together and pretend like me and him aren't strangers? That I'm not about to have an apb put on my ass for ditching prison? Or pretend like you're not a complete and utter selfish dick? You're doing this for yourself, Dean, not me, not your brother, you. And, I don't know why, but that's what this comes down to. You only came and got me from prison when you needed something."

Sam let out a low whistle, suppressing a smirk at the glare he received from Dean. It was hard to belive that Dean Winchester, the man who could talk his way out of anything, could meet his match in a woman, yet there she was, someone who was clearly not afraid to stand up to him. He could've laughed. She looked like someone capable of kicking his ass from there to next week, and honestly, Sam welcomed the idea of having her with them. There was no doubt in his mind that she cared for Dean, it was obvious with the way she was clearly trying her hardest to stay mad at him. But he knew, and he had a feeling that Dean did, too, that she was putting up a front.

"You know what, Natalie, I've missed that attitude of yours." Dean quipped, like he was purposely ignoring the pissed off glare on her face just to annoy her further.

Natalie just shook her head at him, rolling her eyes. "Whatever." she muttered, seeming tired of arguing.

Sam glanced between them once again, there was definitely some unspoken tension holding between the two of them, something that he wasn't sure was going to be resolved anytime soon, but then again, he didn't even know what the tension was caused by in the first place yet.

"You know what, I'm gonna have a shower." he said lightly, pushing himself up and grabbing his bag from the floor on the way to the bathroom. Dean just shot him a look, knowing exactly what he was doing, but Natalie gave no indication that she had even heard him speak.

As the bathroom door closed behind his brother, Dean turned back to her. "Natalie, listen -"

"No, you listen," she cut him off sharply, her tone harsh. He could tell that she was keeping it low enough that Sam wouldn't hear her, and a part of him was grateful for that. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing showing up like this without reason after _everything_ that happened, but I'm not having anything to do with it, alright? So you can either tell me what the hell you want from me, or I'm walking out that door and I swear to god you won't see me again."

Dean sighed, defeated. He didn't know what to say, he didn't want to lie, but he couldn't tell her the truth. "Nat, I told you, I came to find you because you were in prison, that's all."

"No," She shook her head, she wasn't buying that. "The only reason that you could've known that I was in prison is if you were looking for me in the first place." she said, even after so long out of the job, she was clearly still smart. "So why were you looking for me?"

"Alright, honestly?" Dean looked down for a moment, he couldn't tell her, he couldn't, at least not all of it. "I wanted to give it another shot, me and you, being brother and sister." She frowned at that, as though it was the last thing she could have expected him to say to her. "I got to a point where I realised, you're still my family. You're Sammy's sister, too. Nat, me and you, we got along so great back then, we were a team. I miss that. And, I'm not saying that you have to stay here, you don't, but just give it a few days before you run off in the opposite direction, please. If not for me, then at least give Sam a chance."

She narrowed her eyes at him, studying his face for a moment, like she was trying to determine whether or not he was telling the truth, but he didn't miss something soften in her features. She sighed, nodding. "Alright, fine." she muttered. "You win."

He smiled at her, a genuine smile. "Always do." he quipped.

Natalie rolled her eyes at him and dropped down onto one of the beds, running a hand down her face. Dean grabbed his bag from the floor and opened it up on the other bed. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be searching through his clothes, and looked her up and down. She looked completely exhausted, like she was tired of arguing, tired of being angry, tired of everything.

"Here," She looked up at him as he tossed a t-shirt in her direction. "You can sleep in that if you want." he said lightly. "We'll sort you out some clothes in the morning."

She pushed up a smile, he knew that she was still trying to stay mad at him. She was stubborn, they both were. But, he could tell, she was starting to cave.

"Thanks." she said quietly. "Doesn't get you off the hook, you know. I still think you're a douchebag."

Dean chuckled. "Yeah, course you do." He turned as Natalie climbed off the bed and changed into the t-shirt before sitting back down. "You look beat, Nat, why don't you get some sleep, huh? You can fight with me in the morning." Even though his tone was joking, there was an underlying softness, a concern in him wanting to make sure that she was okay.

"Yeah, sure." she nodded.

Natalie remembered how he had been when they had hunted together. He had always had to make sure that she was okay before he worried about himself, he just couldn't put himself before other people, and that had been one of the things that had made her trust him so much. He was selfless, he always had been. She remembered how much he would fuss if she were to get injured, how much he would rant at her if she were to take some kind of a risk to save his life. He had put her life before everything, and she knew that. The same way that she had done with his. But that was a long time ago.

There was something in the back of her mind that wanted to stay mad at him, but there was something else that didn't. Truthfully, she missed the way that the two of them used to be, when they had been so close that nothing could come between them. She missed hunting, she missed the life, but she was still angry. She didn't know how she felt. The most part of her was just exhausted, she wanted to sleep, she could work everything else out in the morning. For once, she was in a normal bed, knowing that she could head outside and go wherever she wanted the next day, she wasn't a prisoner anymore.

She was free. And it was because of her brothers. Whether she wanted to be mad at Dean or not, she couldn't deny that she was beyond grateful to him for coming back to get her.

* * *

There was something about her that was definitely different to Dean, yet he couldn't quite put his finger on what that was. He wasn't sure if it was just the fact that she seemed so hostile towards him or something more, but it was starting to bother him. He understood, of course she had the right to be angry with him, the most part of him expected it, but even she didn't hold a grudge to that degree. He wondered if maybe she was angry that it had taken him so long to go and find her again, maybe she thought that he hadn't cared or that he hadn't missed her, but there was something wrong, and he wanted to find out what.

Back when they had hunted together they had been practically inseparable. There hadn't been a time that there was a doubt the other would die for them, and for a long time nothing would change, he had thought they would always be that way. In a way, they had almost functioned together in the way that he and Sam had once done, with the way that they could read every expression of the other, they could almost sense when something was wrong.

When Dean had first met his sister, Sam had been gone for almost two years. She was the first one that he had been able to openly talk to about his brother and about his leaving. She was the first person to understand his relationships with both his brother and his father. She had listened to everything he had ever said about his mother and the night that she had died. And in time, he had told her every little detail about his life - even the ones that he had never told another person before.

Natalie had completely understood him at one time, and he had a feeling that she still did. There was a look in her eyes when she faced him that almost gave him the impression that she was reading him, taking answers without him having to speak to her first. But he wasn't so sure that he understood her. Something had changed. It was almost as though she had become hard, unreadable to the world around her, like she had shut herself out completely. He didn't know if that was the effect of prison or something more, but it concerned him.

Dean watched as she slept, studying her, trying to read through the slight frown on her face what had happened to her. He wanted to understand, he wanted to know everything, because he wanted to help her. He wanted to make it right, all of it. But she had to forgive him first.

Somewhere behind the comments and arguing he could see there was still something in her eyes, there was still some recognition of the fact that the two of them were family, that they were blood, that they had each other's backs. He didn't think for a second that she didn't care about him anymore, he knew better, he could see that just by looking at her. She was just angry.

He looked away from her as the bathroom door opened. Sam emerged and paused in the doorway as his eyes fell to her. "She sleeping?" he asked, closing the bathroom door over quietly so he didn't wake her.

Dean nodded slowly, seeming unconcerned. "Yeah, like within three seconds of closing her eyes." he said. "She must've been exhausted."

Sam didn't miss the concern in his brother's voice. "Hm, guess escaping prison takes it out of a person." he replied lightly. He crossed the room and took a seat in the chair opposite Dean's, tentative of his next question. "Are you ever gonna tell me?" he asked. Dean looked up at him, as though he hadn't the faintest clue what his brother was getting at. "About your fight." Sam clarified.

"Sam," he sighed heavily, a part of him wished he'd never told him there had been a fight. "There's really nothing to tell."

"Well, obviously there is." he countered. "She's still mad at you, it's been like two years, it must've been something bad."

Dean shook his head, pulling a hand down his face as he finally returned his gaze to his brother. "Honestly, Sam, don't worry about it." he muttered. "Like I said yesterday, she's stubborn. She'll be fine in a couple of days.

"Hm," Sam nodded, not seeming too convinced by Dean's words, not convinced with his answer. "If you say so." he mumbled.

There was something about how Dean tried to sound so sure of himself, but Sam could tell, he wasn't all that sure himself that she was going to forgive him that easily. Maybe the old Natalie, the one that he had hunted with, the one that he had been inseparable with, but he was scared that she was gone. He was afraid that she had changed into someone who wouldn't forgive him, someone who wouldn't get over their fight as easily as he hoped.

"Hey, uh, I meant to ask you," Dean paused halfway through his sentence, thinking his words through carefully. "How are you feeling about all this?" Sam frowned, clearly confused. "You know, about having her here."

Sam just nodded. "Yeah, good, I guess." he shrugged. "I mean, it's good to finally meet her. It'd probably be a little easier if you two weren't at each other's throats, but," he shook his head. "No, it's good with me."

Dean forced up a tight smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "It's good."

A part of him had always wanted to introduce them, he had always had a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that the two of them should know each other, that he was keeping some huge secret from his younger brother by saying nothing for so long, but he couldn't tell him. He had been on strict orders from his Dad to keep quiet at first, and then, once he had gone and Natalie left, he had never been able to find the words to come out with it. And, honestly, the more time that went by without him knowing it got harder to say anything at all, and in the end, he hadn't.

Sam found that he wasn't angry at his brother anymore. It had hurt him at first that Dean had never told him about Natalie, but he found it hard, especially lately, to stay mad at his brother. He knew, deep down, that his brother would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, he never had, and that he had obviously thought not telling him to be the best option available at the time. It had worked out in the end and she was there with them, he just hoped that she would stay.

He knew, especially with the countdown to his hell date getting gradually shorter, how much Dean wanted to make things right with his kid sister. He could understand that. He clearly regretted everything that had happened between them towards the end, he clearly felt guilty about it, there was no hiding that. And even though he didn't have the faintest idea about what had happened, Sam knew that Dean wouldn't have done anything to hurt her so much on purpose. That wasn't who he was, he didn't have it in him. He only hoped, for Dean's sake, that she could find it in herself to get past that and try again with him. She didn't know it, but that's what he deserved.

* * *

_03:12am_

Dean was pulled from his sleep by someone roughly shaking his shoulders. He blinked open his eyes to the dark room, working out the blurred silhouette of his younger brother standing over him through the darkness around him. "Dean," Sam said firmly, sounding a little frustrated as he shook his arm again. "Wake up."

Dean groaned into the pillow and glanced at the clock on the nightstand beside his bed. "Sammy," he mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep. "It's quarter past three in the morning. What the hell are you doing awake?" he whined. "I swear to god, if this is about that stupid deal again -"

"No," Sam cut him off, that wasn't an argument he wanted to get into at that point. "Bobby just called."

Dean sighed deeply as though he had finally realised that he was going to have to pull himself from his bed and wake up. He grabbed the pillow from next to him and threw it blindly across the room, the thud that it made and the annoyed groan that followed told him that he had hit his target. Natalie woke up with a start and pushed herself up to glare at her eldest brother. She picked up the pillow and tossed it back at him, narrowly missing his face.

"What did he want?" Dean asked as he flipped on the light beside the bed and swung his legs over the edge. He returned his attention to Sam and raised an eyebrow, still appearing half asleep. "He got anything good?" he asked, finally pushing himself to his feet.

Natalie also climbed out of bed and ran a hand down her tired face. She had forgotten all about the middle of the morning runs to hunts, and about the crazy sleep hours that hunters lived. Honestly, she got more sleep once she had gone to prison.

"Well," Sam went on. "He hasn't got much, said there's a crop failure and a cicada swamp outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. Could be demonic omens." he shrugged, like he didn't know what else he could tell him. "Might lead to something."

"Something?" Dean raised his eyebrows, clearly not impressed. "Any freaky deaths?"

Sam just shook his head. "No, nothing that Bobby could find," he paused. "Not yet, anyway."

"Hm," Dean frowned as he pulled a hand down his face. "It's weird, man. I mean, the night the devil's gate opened, all these weirdo storm clouds were sighted over how many cities?"

"Seventeen." Sam informed him.

"Seventeen." Dean repeated, nodding to himself. "You think it would be apocalypse now, but it's been five days and we got jack squat." Sam looked up at him, surprised, he almost sounded disappointed. "What are the demons waiting for?"

Sam shook his head, as clueless as his brother was. "Beats me."

"Hold up," Natalie frowned, looking between them slowly. "Did you just say that you'd opened the devil's gates?" she asked. "As in, the devil's gates? As in, the gates to hell?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a somewhat guilty look between them. "Well, I didn't say we'd opened them personally," Dean shrugged, giving a small smile. "But, uh, yeah, pretty much."

"We think we let out an army." Sam added solemnly, looking slightly more remorseful about it than Dean did.

Dean scoffed. "I'll tell you what, it's driving me crazy." he said bluntly. "If it's gonna be a war, I wish it would just start already."

"I don't know, man." Sam sighed. "Be careful what you wish for."

Nothing was said between them for a moment, the three of them all lost in their own deep thoughts, before Dean clapped his hands together loudly. "Alright then, Nebraska it is." he announced brightly.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, and then raised his eyebrows at him as though he had forgotten something. "And, what about Natalie?" he asked him when Dean said nothing in response, not seeming to be following.

He frowned, shaking his head. "What about her?"

Sam sighed. "Well, unless you're planning on having her wear a jumpsuit for the rest of her life, what do we do about clothes?"

"Don't sweat it, Sam," Dean smirked. "I've got a plan."

"And, what's your plan?" he asked curiously, sometimes Dean's plans made him nervous.

"Well, she tells us her size and one of us heads into a department store, buys her a pair of jeans and a shirt or something, and then she has something to wear while she goes inside herself and buys herself some clothes." he smiled as though he was genuinely proud of himself for thinking it up. "Genius, right? No one will even see the damn jumpsuit."

"Yeah, that's genius, Dean," Natalie remarked, nothing but sarcasm in her voice. "And, uh, what's the plan for when I stroll up to the counter with said clothes and one of the cashiers recognises my face from the wanted posters that are bound to be flashing up all over the news by now."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Come on, Nat, no one's that observant at this time of the morning." he countered. "And besides, it's not like we have much of a plan B, unless like Sam said, you wanna wear that jumpsuit for the rest of your life. But, between you and me, orange isn't your colour."

She sighed, defeated, and nodded. "Fine, alright, but if I get caught, it's on you."

Dean chuckled. "Nothing new there, then." he quipped. "Come on, we're not gonna see Nebraska standing around here."

* * *

_11:34am, Lincoln, Nebraska_

Dean pulled up the Impala outside of an old farmhouse, squinting up at it through the glare of the sunlight as he turned off the engine. He glanced back at Natalie, who was finishing lacing up her boots from getting changed in the backseat of the car, before he took a bite of the large burger in his hand. He and Sam climbed out of the car and slammed their doors closed behind themselves simultaneously, the loud bang sounding out through the quiet area around them.

"You hear those cicadas?" Sam said to Dean, looking around slowly as they moved away from the car.

"That can't be a good sign." Dean muttered in response, not sounding too concerned about it. He took another large bite from his burger and continued up the driveway.

Ahead of them in the drive was a beat up truck with Bobby leaning against the the back of it, looking between the two of them slowly as the approached him. He pushed himself up from it and took a couple of steps forwards to greet them, his eyes falling to the food in Dean's left hand. "So, we're eating bacon cheeseburgers for breakfast, are we?" he asked lightly, raising his eyebrows at the eldest Winchester.

Dean shrugged. "Well, I sold my soul." he stated lightly. "Got a year to live, I ain't sweating the cholesterol."

Bobby shook his head at him slowly, he couldn't understand how he was so open and upbeat about the fact that, in less than a year, he was going to be dragged down to hell, but he forced up a small chuckle, saying nothing. He stopped completely as his eyes fell to the car, noticing who was sitting in the backseat, looking to have been getting changed before they got out. Dean looked behind himself, only then realising that she wasn't standing with them. "Is that -" he went to ask him, but his question was answered as the door to the backseat swung open and she climbed out. "Natalie?"

It was a long time since he had seen her, two years in fact. When Dean had first showed up at his front door with the pretty girl with the dark hair he'd assumed it was just his latest girlfriend, he was all too ready to slap some sense into the boy that had dragged an innocent girl along into the hunting life with him. But that hadn't been the case. It had taken him a while to get his head around the fact that John Winchester had a daughter, he could never have imagined it. At first, he had been somewhat skeptical. He hadn't thought it was the best idea to pull another person down into their life with them, but that was before he had known how well she could handle herself. She had proved herself over and over with the way she hunted, the way she could research, the way that she could handle herself out there. And it hadn't taken long for Bobby to trust her completely, in the same way that he would have trusted Sam or Dean with something.

Natalie looked up at the mention of her name, not seeming to have realised that there was anyone else there, and stopped in shock. "Bobby?" A smile spread across her face as she moved forwards and threw her arms around him. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself." Bobby said as he hugged her back, just as tightly. "It's been a while, kid." he said as she pulled back to look at him. "How you doin'?"

"I'm good, yeah." she smiled. "Anything's better than super maximum security prison, right?"

Bobby chuckled to himself, nodding. "Yeah, I suppose it must be." he said, turning to Dean. "Next time you're trying to bust someone out of prison, give me a heads up, yeah? Supermax aren't as easy to lie to as the Feds."

Dean just smirked at him. "Couldn't you handle it, Bobby?"

Sam just rolled his eyes at them, a small smile playing on his face. "So, Bobby, what do you think?" he asked. "We got a biblical plague here or what?"

"Well, let's find out." Bobby answered, turning towards the porch steps of the house and heading up them. "Looks like the swarm's ground zero."

Dean moved his way to the front door of the house and pounded on it with the side of his fist impatiently. "Candygram!" he yelled.

The four of them looked between each other when there wasn't a response from the other side of the door. Dean pulled out a lock pick and leaned down to the door handle, while the other three pulled out their guns, readying them. After a few seconds it clicked and Dean straightened himself up as he led the way into the hallway of the house. They were hit with the immediate smell of rotting corpses and dead bodies, to which each of them covered their noses in disgust.

"That's awful." Sam commented.

Dean grimaced. "That so can't be a good sign." he muttered in response, heading further into the house as he pulled his own gun from the back of his jeans. "Bet that's a smell you've missed, right, Nat?" he added lightly.

Natalie scoffed at the comment, shaking her head slowly. "Like you wouldn't believe." she responded sarcastically.

Bobby headed off in the direction of the back of the house, while Sam, Dean and Natalie moved through the rest of the downstairs area. They crept through the different rooms, guns drawn and ready to fire. They cleared every room, finding nothing, and came to a stop within the middle of the room. Looking between each other as though waiting for someone to suggest something, they all turned at what sounded like panicked screams coming from the next room.

"You hear that?" Sam whispered, looking between Dean and Natalie for a reaction.

They took a second before they moved towards the only closed door left. Sam and Dean nodded at each other before they simultaneously kicked open the door and stepped into the room, guns aimed ahead. The sound became clearer as the door opened, coming from a movie playing on the television set. But that wasn't what caught the attention of the Winchesters.

The stench of rotting corpses hit them at once as they entered. Seated on the couch were a family of three people, already looking to be several days dead. They were wasted away with flies crawling over them, looking as though they had starved to death.

"Oh my god," Sam said, his voice low. They all looked up as Bobby entered through the other side of the room, also recoiling in horror at the sight. "Bobby," Sam looked up at him for answers. "What the hell happened here?"

Bobby shook his head, at a loss the same as them. "I don't know."

"Check for sulfur." Dean said, turning to check the window for it. The four of them checked every part of the room for sulfur, finding nothing.

There was a bang outside of the house, something which caught all of their attention. Dean straightened himself up slowly and signaled for each of them to head out a different way to check it out. He and Natalie headed towards the front of the house while Sam and Bobby headed in the direction of the back.

Natalie headed out onto the porch and looked up and down slowly, looking around for any sign of someone being there. Seeing nothing, she headed out and gripped a firmer hold of her gun. She moved down the side of the house, ready to fight anyone that should show up. She was about to head back the other way to find Sam and Bobby when she heard a loud thud come from the other side of the porch. She ran around to find Dean lying on the ground. There was a man stood over him, aiming a shotgun at his face, and a woman to the side of him.

Before she had a chance to react to anything before her, she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. "Isaac? Tamara?" she turned to see Bobby heading towards them, a surprised smile on his face.

Both looked up at him, a smile forming on their faces. "Bobby." The woman smiled wider. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same." Bobby chuckled.

The man lowered his shotgun away from where it was still pointed at Dean's face and held out a hand to shake Bobby's. "Heya, Bobby."

"Hello," Dean called up from where he still lay on the ground, raising an arm pitifully. "Bleeding here."

Natalie rolled her eyes at him and grabbed a firm grasp of his hand as she pulled him up again to face her.

The door slammed closed behind Sam, who came to a stop at the sight of Tamara and Isaac. He looked to Dean, as though asking for an explanation to the fact that he was standing with a hand pressed to his bloody nose, and raised his eyebrows.

"So," Sam looked between them all. "What do we do now?"

"How about we all head back to ours?" Tamara suggested. "It's not too far from here. We can hold up there until we can figure out what's going on."

Bobby nodded. "That sounds like a plan." he agreed.

They each made some kind of a mental note as she explained to them where they were going, mapping out the directions in their heads. "Great. We'll see you there." Tamara said brightly as she and her husband headed off to their car.

Bobby turned to the three of them and raised his eyebrows. "I'll see you kids later." he said simply.

"Yeah," Dean nodded nonchalantly. "I'd offer you a ride with us but the backseat of my car is currently being taken up by about twenty bags of shopping." he said sarcastically, shooting a look in Natalie's direction.

"Dude," She rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head slowly. "Don't exaggerate."

Bobby simply chuckled at them, he remembered the way that they had used to bicker between themselves when they had been younger. He felt like it was a shame that they weren't still like that, they had seemed too close for anything to come between them. Without saying a word he turned and headed off down the steps of the porch in the direction of his truck. Sam, Dean and Natalie followed him down, heading to where the Impala was parked behind it.

"Alright," Sam turned to face them both as they reached the bottom of the steps. "You guys take the Impala, I'm gonna ride with Bobby." he informed them simply.

Dean narrowed his eyes at his brother, as though he knew exactly what he was doing and what he intended to do, but he just nodded. It wasn't an argument they could afford to have, not there, and not in front of Natalie. "Sure." he said bluntly, watching after him as he headed off down the road to where Bobby was waiting for him.

Natalie also watched him go, a small frown on her face. "What was that about?" she asked, her eyes never leaving him as he walked away.

He shook his head. "Oh, don't worry about that." he said lightly. "It's nothing to do with you, believe me."

Dean watched his brother climb up into the truck, and no sooner had he pulled the door closed behind him, he already looked like he was talking too fast to breath between his words. And Dean knew what it was that Sam was badgering him about, again. He was taking every second that they weren't talking about their hunt to talk about finding a way to break his demon deal, and Dean didn't know how he was supposed to tell him that he couldn't be saved from it at all. There was no explaining that. It was one thing his kid brother that he had sold his soul for him and that he had a year to live, but then to say that no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did or how hard he worked, there was absolutely no stopping what was to come in the very near future, it was way too much. He couldn't.

And Natalie still had no clue.

Dean was grateful to Sam for saying nothing about the deal to her, he couldn't handle it if she knew, too. If Natalie found out, he knew that she would forgive him before the news had even sunk into her head. And that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want her to feel obliged to speak to him, he didn't want her guilt to be what kept her with them, he wanted that to be her choice. She couldn't know, not yet.

"Come on," he said lightly, tearing his eyes away from the empty driveway ahead of them. "I'll even let you drive."

Natalie's head snapped up to look at him at those words. "Are you kidding?"

Dean smirked a little, holding his car keys just out of her reach before she could get them and stepped forwards. "Rules haven't changed, Nat," he said seriously. "If you damage my car, and I mean crash it, bang it, dent it, scratch it, even get mud on it in the wrong way, you won't be the only one being chased down by the cops for murder."

She fought the urge to laugh at his words, but nodded. "Duly noted."

Dean rolled his eyes and handed her the keys, making his way around to the passenger side of the Impala to get in.

The drive was quiet, with the only sound between them coming from the low rock music Dean had playing on the radio. It was as though neither wanted to speak, because neither knew what to say.

"Look, Natalie," Dean eventually sighed, he didn't want to have the conversation he was about to start, but he knew that it had to be done, they couldn't just ignore the tension holding between them forever, eventually it would come out. "I know a lot of stuff was said between us yesterday, and -"

"Dean, it's fine." she cut him off bluntly before he had a chance to say more, it was like she was avoiding the topic with everything she had in her. "I'm over it, really." she muttered. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Dean looked to her, frowning. "Of course it matters." he countered, turning defensive. "You're obviously still pissed -"

"Dean, really." she cut over him again, a little more forcefully this time. "I said forget it."

"No, I can't forget it, Nat. Come on, at least say something, you can't just push the anger down and pretend like it's not there." His voice rose as he spoke, he was getting frustrated and she knew that. But, so was she.

Without so much as a warning, Natalie pulled the car over to the side of the road and slammed down on the breaks, coming to an abrupt halt that took Dean by complete surprise. "You know what, Dean," she turned in her seat to face him, eyes hard and brow furrowed in annoyance. "When I say it doesn't matter anymore, I mean I don't care anymore, alright? I'm done with it, I'm done trying to stay mad, and I'm done pretending like nothing happened. I'm just tired, of all of it." Dean frowned a little, as though he didn't understand what she was getting at. "Now, I told you I would give this a chance for Sam, and that's what I'm doing. But the second this hunt is over, I'm gone. Okay?"

"Nat," Dean sighed heavily, he didn't know what else he could say to her. There were only so many times he could say that he was sorry, that he wanted to try again, he couldn't make her listen to him, he couldn't force her to forgive him. "At least think about this."

"I have thought about it, I'm leaving, Dean, there's nothing more to it." Her tone was hard, in a way that he knew meant she wasn't kidding around. Once the hunt was done, she was gone. It was as simple as that.

"If that's what you want, I won't stop you." he replied simply, his voice blank.

She held his eyes for another few seconds before she turned back to the wheel and started the car again, saying nothing more as she set off down the road.


	4. Deadly Sins And Daddy Issues

**Chapter 4: Deadly Sins And Daddy Issues**

_Isaac and Tamara's place, 08:23pm. _

The sun had begun to set in the sky by the time the six of them had arrived where Isaac and Tamara were holding up for the hunt. They had headed inside and gotten to work straight away, all of them trying desperately to find out what they could be dealing with. There were no clues in the dozens of books they had gone through between them, no new leads or clues as to what was going on. They still had absolutely no answers at all as they waited for Dean to get off the phone to see if he'd had better luck than they had.

Natalie sat the table towards the side of the room, absently flipping the pages of the book in front of her, not particularly paying much attention to what was written on the pages in front of her. After a few hours of reading, the words were beginning to blur into one big uninterpretable text. She could vaguely hear Dean in the next room on the phone, sounding as though he was doing more flirting with whoever he was talking to that anything else. She glanced back at him and gave a small frown as she thought to herself. There was something going on between them, she could tell, even if she didn't know Sam that well, she sure as hell knew Dean. There was a time when she had been able to read his every expression. Between them they were hiding something.

"Honey?" Isaac's voice pulled her from her thoughts, she turned her attention to him and his wife. "Where's the Palo Santo?"

"Well, where did you leave it?" she asked simply, not bothering to look up from what she had been doing.

"I don't know, dear." he replied sarcastically. "That's why I'm asking."

"Palo Santo?" Sam asked, looking between them curiously.

"It's holy wood, from Peru." Tamara explained, crossing the room to where her husband was. "It's toxic to demons, like holy water. Keeps the bastards nailed down while you're exorcising them." she said as she pulled out a large, pointed stake from the bag in front of her and handed it to Isaac with an affectionate smile. "You'd lose your head if it wasn't for me." she added lightly.

Sam smiled at them. "So, how long you two been married?" he asked lightly, more out of making conversation than anything else.

"Eight years this past june." Tamara smiled brightly.

Isaac took a step forwards and kissed the top of her head. "The family that slays together."

Sam nodded. "Right, I'm with you there." he chuckled. "So, how'd you get started?"

The smiles immediately dropped from their faces, replaced by deep and solemn looks. There was an awkward and tense silence throughout the room, with neither choosing to answer him. "Oh, you know, I'm sorry." Sam said quietly, the guilt showing in his voice. "It's not," he shook his head. "That's none of my business."

Tamara shook her head. "It's alright." she said quietly.

Natalie flipped the book closed and pushed herself up from the chair as Dean headed back into the room. "Well, Jenny, if you look as pretty as you sound, then I'd love to have an appletini." He pulled a face to them, looking nothing but lost as to what he was agreeing to. "Yeah, call you." he hung up with a deep sigh and shoved the phone back into his jeans. "That was the coroner's tech. Get this, that whole family, cause of death? Dehydration and starvation. There's no signs of restraint, no violence, no struggle. They just sat down and never got up."

Bobby frowned. "But there was a fully stocked kitchen just yards away." he stated, confused.

"What is this?" Sam pressed, looking to him for answers. "A demon attack?"

Bobby shook his head. "If it is, it's not like anything I ever saw, and I've seen plenty."

"Well, what now?" Dean asked. "What should we do?"

"Uh, we're not gonna do anything." Isaac cut in, his voice hard. Dean raised his eyebrows questioningly, as if to ask what his problem was. "Look, you people seem nice enough, but this ain't Scooby-Doo, and we don't play well with others."

"Well, I think we'd cover a lot more ground if we all worked together." Sam suggested, his voice remaining steady and calm, more than could said for how Dean looked.

"No offence, but we're not teaming up with the damn fools who let the Devil's Gate get opened in the first place." he said seriously, looking between the four of them as though they should have realised earlier how much in the wrong he considered them to be.

"No offense?" Dean repeated incredulously, pushing himself up from where he leaned against the edge of the desk as if he were anticipating a fight to break out.

"Isaac." Tamara admonished him. "Like you've never made a mistake."

"Oh yeah, yeah." he nodded simply. "I've locked my keys in the car, turned my laundry pink. Never brought on the end of the world, though."

"Alright." Dean forced a laugh, shaking his head. "That's enough."

"Guys, this isn't helping." Sam cut in, his voice quiet. He looked to his brother, seeing how he was getting riled up, and shook his head. "Dean -" he warned him, telling him to drop it.

"Look, there are a couple hundred more demons out there now." Isaac said darkly. "We don't know where they are, when they'll strike. There ain't enough hunters in the world to handle something like this. You brought war down on us," he said harshly, a deep frown on his face as he looked at them. "On all of us."

Neither Sam, Dean or Bobby said anything, all looking anywhere but each other. Sam shook his head, nothing but guilt written all over his face, while Dean stared at the floor, acting as though Isaac wasn't voicing everything he had thought to himself over the past week. It was only when Natalie, who had been completely silent for at least an hour, stepped forwards that they looked up again.

"Uh, excuse me, but who the hell do you think you are?" she asked him, standing in front of him and glaring straight at him, as though she was warning him she was ready to carry on the fight he had started, even if no one else in the room was. Dean noticed her fists were clenched at her sides, the way she stood when she was more than prepared to punch someone.

The question seemed to take not only Isaac by surprise, but everybody else in the room, too. Sam and Dean looked between each other, as though they weren't sure what to say. Dean had been convinced that she was that pissed at him she would've been taking their side over his any day of the week, but apparently he had been wrong. She was still standing at the front of the short line of people ready to defend him.

Bobby raised his eyebrows at her, appearing somewhat amused. "When did you start defending your brothers?" he asked simply, as though he was trying to tone the situation down a notch before someone really did throw a punch.

"When he," she turned to Bobby but pointed a finger straight at Isaac as she spoke, her voice hard. "started to disrespect them."

Sam couldn't help but smile a little at her comment. She was just like Dean. She could be pissed as hell at her family, she could be furious, but the second that someone turned around and said a bad word against them in front of her, it was all forgotten. She would defend them with her life, the same way that he or his brother would do in the same situation.

"Okay," Tamara spoke up, taking a hold of her husband around the arm. "That's quite enough for now." she muttered, pulling him out of the room with her and leaving the four of them alone.

Bobby sighed. "Why don't the three of you keep looking for something," he said, gesturing to the books lying on the table. "I just had a thought." With that, he pulled his phone from his pocket and headed off into the next room. None of them questioned him, just watched him leave and remained in a tense silence.

"Well," Dean began brightly as he turned back to Natalie. "So much for being pissed at me, huh?" he said lightly, holding a hand to his heart in mock gratitude. "Still there to defend my honour, aren't you." he quipped, throwing her a smug smirk, like he was telling her he knew better than the front she was putting up, to which she just glared.

Sam rolled his eyes at them. He couldn't understand it at all. Half the time she looked at him like she wanted to kill him, like she was so angry, but there was always something in her eyes that said something else. And there, with her automatically defending him like that, he had a feeling that he had been right, it was all just a front to cover up something else. And he wasn't too sure whether Dean had worked that part out yet or not. It was like his brother to become so wound up in the fact that he thought she was pissed, that he would miss that fact that it was something else entirely.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Sam asked, looking between them for an idea. "There's only so many times we can go through the same books, we don't have anyone to call for help, we're screwed here."

Natalie thought about it, she knew who the first person they should be calling was. And it was when neither of them suggested it that she knew she had to ask. She had been wondering the same thing since they had showed up at prison, they hadn't mentioned it, neither had she, but her patience was done. She needed to know.

She cleared her throat and looked between them slowly. "Are either of you going to tell me?" she asked simply, her voice quiet. Both Sam and Dean turned to look at her, each appearing as confused as the other. "Or do I have to work it out for myself?" They looked from her to each other again, as though they thought that she had busted them on something, but still didn't speak. "It's been long enough, I've kept my mouth shut, I haven't asked questions, but," she sighed deeply. "What happened to him? I mean, he's dead, right? You'd have said otherwise." She was looking straight at Dean now as though she knew, just by the fact that he hadn't said anything, that whatever she suspected was right.

Dean just frowned at her, lost. "Who?" he asked, he genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. But the look on her face told him that he probably should have done.

"What do you mean, 'who'?" she asked, as though it should have been the most obvious thing to them in the world. "Dad."

It was at that one word, Dean's face completely fell. He realised, as far as she knew, Dad was alive and well. "God, I'm sorry, Natalie." he whispered. The last time that they had been together their Dad had been hunting alone while she and Dean took a case. He hadn't even mentioned him since she came back, he hadn't even thought to tell her that he had gone to hell. Or why. "I'm sorry, we should've said something."

Natalie shook her head slowly. She moved to sit down at the table towards the side of the room with a deep sigh, resting her forehead against her palms. There was a clear sadness within her at the news, she honestly looked upset. Sam and Dean looked between each other, guiltily, as they moved to sit down at the table with her.

"When did you first meet Dad?" Sam asked, sitting down across from her, next to Dean.

She looked up at his question, appearing surprised by his interest. "Uh," she frowned as she thought about it. "He showed up when I was fourteen, I'd never even known his name before then," she shrugged. "I don't even know how he found out about me. But one day I went home, my Mom was away, I don't know where she'd gone, but he was just there, sitting on the couch waiting for me."

Dean cleared his throat, the entire thing made him feel bad. He still had some feeling of resentment towards him for not telling him about Natalie the day he had found out about her. He could have met her at twenty, when she was still just a kid, before her life turned out the way that it had. Things could've been different.

"What happened?" he asked. His Dad had never really explained much of what had been said between them the first time they had met, just that it hadn't worked out. It had left her not wanting anything to do with the family.

"He, uh," she let out a small laugh. "He tried to tell me that you all hunted demons and monsters and ghosts. Honestly, I thought he was nuts. I didn't want anything to do with it. I yelled at him, told him I didn't want to see him again," she looked down and shook her head. "Then, he gave me his number and told me if I ever changed my mind I should give him a call."

Sam frowned. "And that was the last time you saw him until you started hunting?"

She shook her head slowly. "I was on trial when I was sixteen, I was looking at going back to Juvy for a long time. Anyway, the beginning of the trial he just walked right in and gave this speech, got me off the hook, I don't even know how he did it. He didn't hang around for long after that. I mean, I thought about calling him, but I didn't. Not until nearly two years later. I was seventeen, my Mom died, and I just thought, you know, fuck it. So I called him and asked him to come down to see me."

"And that's when we showed up?" Dean pressed. "When you started hunting?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "He came down to meet me, we had a talk, and he asked me to hunt."

* * *

_Four years earlier_

John Winchester walked into the small diner, almost empty apart from the few people scattered around. It was fairly quiet with most of the noise in the room sounding from the sketchy radio station playing music that he had never heard before. He paused in the doorway and looked around slowly. His eyes fell to the teenage girl staring down at the coffee cup held between her hands on the table. He could see from where she stood, she looked exhausted, as though she hadn't slept in days. He'd known when she had called, and looking at her only confirmed it, something was wrong. He got a better look at her as he made her way across the diner to where she sat. Her black hair was pulled back into a scruffy bun, with the front pieces falling at the sides of her face. Her make up was worn and a little smudged around her eyes, as if she had been rubbing them in an attempt to stay awake. He couldn't help but feel concerned about what had happened to her. He hadn't seen her in almost two years, she had grown up so much since then. He felt like he had missed out.

He came to a stop beside the booth where she sat, looking down at her. But she seemed far too lost in her own thoughts to even realise that there was somebody standing there.

"Natalie." His voice broke through her deep thoughts, making her jump a little in surprise. She looked up as he moved to sit down opposite her and straightened herself up a little, composing herself.

"Hey." she said simply, forcing up a tight smile to him.

John frowned a little, he knew without saying that something had happened to her, he could see it in her face. He knew that she had to be in a mess or she wouldn't have called him. "Are you alright?" he asked her, his voice soft, understanding.

Natalie nodded slowly, not looking at all convinced. "My, uh," she cleared her throat. "My mom passed a couple days ago." she said simply, looking up at him again. "I thought you might wanna know."

John sighed deeply, shaking his head. He had seen the kind of relationship the two of them had been in when he had last been there to see Natalie. It hadn't been great. Her Mom had always been more concerned with her drugs and alcohol than she had ever been about her daughter, who just hadn't seemed to care either way. Natalie had made a life for herself, she never went to her mom for anything. She spent most of her time away from home, whether that was because she was always out with her friends getting into trouble or because she was being held down in Juvenile detention. He knew it hadn't been great, and honestly, Natalie didn't appear that broken up about her death.

"I'm sorry to hear that." John said quietly, sympathy in his voice. "What happened?"

"She overdosed." Natalie shrugged nonchalantly. "Not really a huge shocker, is it?" she added darkly, sounding more pissed off about the situation than upset.

There were unshed tears shining in her eyes, yet he wasn't sure why. She looked away from him, there was nothing in this, she didn't know why she had called him in the first place. What the hell had she been thinking? He didn't want anything to do with her, especially after what she had said to him the last time they had been together. Honestly, she had been surprised that he had even answered the phone when she had called.

"Look, I'm sorry," she mumbled, still refusing to face him. "I shouldn't have called you." she grabbed her bag and her jacket from the seat beside her and made a move to get up and leave, but he stopped her.

"Natalie, sit down." he said bluntly, his tone stopping her in her tracks. "I know things were said, but I'm still your Dad. Just, talk to me, okay? Tell me what's going on." He could see that she was in some kind of trouble, and then it hit him, her Mom was all she had, she was on her own. "Where are you living?"

Natalie looked down. "I'm, uh," she cleared her throat. "I'm staying with my boyfriend. Him and his friend have this apartment thing." she sighed. "It's fine."

John frowned, he didn't believe for a second that it was fine. "What about money?" he pressed. "Have you got some?"

"I've got enough," she muttered. "I'm, uh, I'm looking for a job."

"Okay," John said calmly. "How about you tell me the truth, Natalie? What's going on with you?"

What she was saying might have been true, but he knew that none of it was permanent. She was seventeen years old and she was on her own. He doubted anybody even knew about her. If it weren't for the people that she hung around with, she would've been without support and on her own a long time ago. But then, he knew what kind of people she did associate with. They were the type who got themselves involved with things they shouldn't, the type to get themselves thrown into prison. He didn't trust them, not where his only daughter was concerned. And that's when he realised, he should've taken her away from all of that years ago.

Natalie clenched her jaw, like she was fighting herself on telling him anything, but sighed. She didn't have a choice anymore, she needed help. "What am I supposed to do, Dad?" she whispered, there were tears clinging to her lashes, threatening to fall. "I've got nowhere to go, nothing going for me," she shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed as she pushed back tears. "I'm screwed."

John looked at her sadly, it hurt him that she could sit there and tell him that and it didn't even cross her mind that he would help her. That's what kind of a father she thought he was, and it had to change. "No, you're not." he said simply. He wasn't having that. He had screwed things to hell with one of his kids already. He had pushed Sam away and he knew that. He had let Natalie push him away once before, and he regretted every day that he hadn't tried harder with her, but the longer he had left it the harder it had gotten. He wasn't going to make that same mistake again.

There was a girl sitting in front of him, just seventeen years old, his only daughter, who was trying not to cry and needed her dad. She had lived a life without family, relying on just her friends, who he had known were not the best people she could have been around. She spent more time in detention centers than out of them, and it was time he stepped in and stopped it, before things got worse and she ended up with a prison sentence.

"Where am I supposed to go from here?" she asked him, looking up at him as though he was supposed to hold the answers to everything. "I have no money, no job, hell, I never even went to high school, Dad. What am I supposed to do?"

John sighed sadly. This wasn't supposed to have been her life. He had only been told that he had a daughter when she had already turned fourteen, and by then she had wanted absolutely nothing at all to do with him. Now, she needed him, and he wasn't going to turn his back on her, but life with them only went down on road, and it wasn't a nice one. Or one that she had like the idea of the first time she had heard about it.

"Well," John leaned forwards in his set, his arms folded loosely on the table in front of him. "Let me ask you something; can you fight?" Natalie looked up at him with a frown, but nodded. "Can you run, fast?"

"Yeah." she answered, looking even more confused with everything he said to her.

He nodded slowly. "You're obviously smart, Natalie, even if you didn't go to school. You can clearly handle yourself just fine." He knew if that weren't true and she wasn't tough, she wouldn't have survived how she had been brought up. She would have cracked a long, long time ago. "And you must be pretty sneaky to have gotten away with half of the stuff you have." he added lightly, a note of pride somewhere in his voice that she had never heard from anyone before.

"What, exactly, are you getting at here?" she asked, clearly lost as to what he was talking about. "I'm not gonna rob a bank, Dad."

A small smile crossed his face. "You're a hunter in the making, Natalie."

She blinked, confused for a moment, before she realised what he had meant. "You expect me to start killing monsters with you? How does that work?"

John shook his head. "I'm not saying that I expect you to do anything. I'm saying that the offer is there if you want to take it. You'll never be on your own, Dean will always be there with you if you're taking a hunt."

"Dean." she said quietly, pondering the name. "Does he know about me?"

John nodded. "It's a little new to him, but, yeah, he knows. And he wants to meet you."

She frowned a little. "What about the other one?" she thought for a second. "Sam, right?"

John cleared his throat, looking down at the table for a moment. "Sam left." he said simply. "He isn't in this life anymore." The way that he said it gave her the impression that he didn't want to talk about it, and so she left it, not mentioning it again. "How about this, you can stay with Dean for a while, he can train you up, no pressure. If you don't think that it's for you then you can leave the life, we'll figure something else out for you. But I'm not leaving you here, Natalie, not on your own."

Natalie thought about it. There wasn't really a lot of other options open to her. She was back out on the streets soon enough if she said no, and she was only a couple of weeks away from turning eighteen, that meant that she could go to jail. And she knew as well as he did, if she stayed where she was, there was no doubt, she was going to end up in prison. Maybe going with them was what she needed to turn her life around. Because there, the only thing that was open to her was a life of going downhill, fast, and that wasn't what she wanted.

* * *

"So, I stayed with him." Natalie shrugged. "And that's when I met Dean."

Sam listened to her carefully. He wished that he would have been there for the first time that Dean had met his sister, they should have done it together, and he only had himself to blame for that. If he wouldn't have turned his back on them and walked away, if he would have answered Dean's calls from the beginning, things might have been different. Maybe John would have let him call and tell him about her, maybe she would have come to see him, or he could have met her. But he hadn't, and he regretted that so much. A part of him could tell that Dean did, too.

It wasn't that he had never wanted to tell Sam, he always had. From the day he had been told by their Dad that Natalie existed, Dean had argued that Sam should have been informed, too. But back then he had been in a position where he couldn't afford to argue with his Dad. Natalie hadn't known much difference, if Dean said that they couldn't go and see him then she would just accept it and move on, not really asking much about it. Until Dean had explained the whole truth about why they couldn't go, and she had no problem with standing up to her own father and telling him that he was wrong. But it had still never happened. He did regret it, but they were things that he couldn't take back, and there was no point in dwelling on what they couldn't change.

* * *

_The next day, 10:12am._

Sam and Natalie headed towards a store where, outside, police were gathered around taking forensic evidence at a murder scene. He made sure to stand on the opposite side of her, blocking her from view of them as they approached the door. "So, what happened here?" she asked him, glancing down at the blood covering the sidewalk beside them.

"Apparently, the woman beat her to death over a pair of shoes." he shrugged. "Sounds like a bad joke, right?" he added, opening the door and letting her inside the store first. They immediately spotted where Dean was standing, shamelessly flirting with one of the witnesses.

"What happened outside makes you realize how fragile life really is." he said, nothing but put on sympathy in his voice. Neither of them could hold back a smirk at him. "You got to make every second count." he said, resting a hand to her shoulder. Sam cleared his throat, nodding at him. "Excuse me a minute, would you?" he said to her.

"Sure." she said, looking between the three of them before heading off.

"Dean, what are you doing?" Sam asked him, already sounding exasperated with him.

"I'm comforting the bereaved." he countered. "What are you doing?"

"Workin'. Dead body, possible demon attack," he raised his eyebrows. "That kind of stuff."

Dean rolled his eyes and bit back a sarcastic comment, noticing as Bobby walked into the store. He wore a suit and tie with his hair slicked back, looking smart. He let out a low whistle as he approached. "Whoa. Looking spiffy, Bobby. What were you, a g-man?" he quipped.

Bobby shook his head. "Attorney for the D.A.'s office. I just spoke to the suspect."

"Yeah? So, what do you think?" Sam asked him. "Is she possessed or what?"

"Don't think so. There's none of the usual signs, no blackouts, no loss of control. Totally lucid. Just, she really wanted those shoes." he shrugged. "Spilled a glass of holy water on her just to be sure; nothing."

"Maybe she is just some random whack job." Dean suggested lightly, like that would make him feel better.

"If it had been an isolated incident, maybe, but first the family, now this?" Bobby shook his head. "I believe in a lot of things, coincidence ain't one of them. Did you find anything around here?" he asked, looking between the three of them.

Sam shook his head. "No sulfur, nothing."

"Well,maybe something." They all turned to Dean as he nodded over to a security camara at the front of the store. "See?" he smirked at Sam. "I'm working."

"Alright," Bobby nodded. "Let's check it out."

Natalie turned to follow them through to the back when Dean grabbed a hold of her around the wrist. She turned, almost impatiently, as if to tell him that she really couldn't be bothered to have another argument, or even another conversation, with him at that point. Since she had told him that she was bailing after the hunt, the two of them hadn't spoken alone, it was as though she had been avoiding him all together, doing everything she could not to be in the same room as him long enough that he would have the chance to start up a serious conversation with her.

"Hey, have you got some protection?" he asked seriously.

She looked a little taken aback at first, frowning. Her eyes fell back to where the girl he had been chatting up was still watching him, before she looked back to him in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

Dean rolled his eyes, knowing exactly where her mind had gone to. "I mean against possession, you idiot." he deadpanned. "Demons running around, no protection means you're liable to be possessed, you see where I'm going with this?"

"Oh." she nodded. "Don't worry, Dean, I've still got the little amulet you gave me." she smirked, pulling out a silver chain from beneath her shirt to show him.

"Hm. And he's me thinking that you're not sentimental." he muttered sarcastically.

The two of them headed into the security room, finding Sam and Bobby already watching the tape from earlier in the day. "Anything interesting?" Dean asked lightly.

"I don't know yet." Sam said simply as they watched a man approach a blonde woman in the store. "Might just be a guy," he paused and played it again to show them. "Or it might be our guy."

They all watched as the man walked up to the blonde woman and placed a hand on her shoulder, nodding over to the woman who she had killed out on the street. They looked between each other, seeming to realise that there was something going on.

"We need to find this guy." Dean said simply.

Sam nodded. "Right, you and Natalie get on that, me and Bobby can see if we can't find out who he is. We'll meet up again later."

Bobby nodded in agreement. "Yeah, sounds like a plan." he said, pushing himself up from where he sat. He and Sam headed off out of the room, leaving Dean and Natalie alone.

Dean cleared his throat, attempting to ignore the awkward silence between them, and the fact that it was probably going to go on like that all day. "Don't look so uncomfortable, Dean." she muttered. "I'm gonna skip this, anyway." Dean just raised his eyebrows. "There's some stuff that I've gotta do," she shrugged. "People to see, that kinda thing. I'll catch up with you later."

He frowned, not following. "Hold up, who the hell could you possibly have to meet around here?" he asked curiously. "You've been out of jail less than a week, you're on the run from the cops, how does anyone know where you are?"

Natalie rolled her eyes, as if to ask him why it even mattered. "Look, I think we can both agree that pretending to be a Fed, or a cop, or anything, right now isn't really on the cards for me. It's not like I can hang around on a crime scene surrounded by cops, so how about you get on with your thing, and I'll take care of mine."

Dean frowned. He didn't like the idea of her being out in the town alone, not without any of them there to keep an eye on her. He knew what Sam had done, why he had been so quick to be the one to suggest the plan. He had wanted to make sure that Natalie and Dean had been together, probably so that they could talk about whatever issue he thought they had, but that wouldn't happen with her. He knew that. If it had been up to him, he would have had her with Bobby, and then he would at least know that she would stick on the job, with him he could take a good guess that she would suddenly find somewhere else to be. He was starting to get the impression that she was trying her hardest not to let herself make up with him.

"Natalie -" he went to argue, but, no surprise to him, she wouldn't take it.

"I'll see you later, alright." She pushed up a forced smile and turned from him, heading out of the room.

Dean just sighed, she sure as hell wasn't making it easy for him, especially since she wouldn't even tell him what was going on in the first place. He didn't understand why she was so insistent to get away from them. It wasn't even just him anymore, she seemed more and more distanced from the job, like she could think of nothing worse than hunting in the first place. And that's what he thought was weird, because back when they had been together she had loved the job. He had never once heard her complain about it, she had never backed down from it in fear or told him that she hadn't wanted to take a hunt. It didn't make sense that she was suddenly so against it all.

But she was refusing to stay around him long enough for him to get any answers. She would turn and run away the second they even got close to a serious conversation. The same way he knew he would do if he was trying to hide something from one of his siblings.

* * *

_Bar, 12:01am_

Dean released a tired sigh as he stared blankly ahead at the quiet parking lot in front of them. He and Bobby had been sitting there for what felt like hours without seeing anything, there had been no sighting of the guy they were looking for, no sign of anything weird happening, nothing. It was getting frustrating.

"How you holding up with having her back?" Bobby suddenly asked him, turning from where he sat behind the wheel and raising an eyebrow at him. "Natalie." he clarified when Dean said nothing. "You two sorted things out yet?"

Dean scoffed, shaking his head. "Well, she bailed on me this morning the second you and Sam left the room, so what does that tell you?" he muttered. Bobby just looked at him, as if he wasn't satisfied with the answer. "Nah, she's, uh, she's still pissed. Well, she's acting like she's still pissed." he sighed. "I think maybe she just wants out of the life, she doesn't wanna be here. That much I can tell. I just don't get why."

"You don't know, she might stick around." Bobby said, trying to give Dean some kind of hope to hold onto, he looked downright miserable at the thought of her bailing on them.

"She's gone as soon as the hunt's done, she told me earlier." he replied, his voice blank. "I don't think she's willing to stick around long enough to even try and work it out." he shrugged. "Guess I screwed it up big time, huh?" he added repentantly.

Bobby sighed. He had learned a long time ago not to get involved with their arguments, anyone who had ever seen them in some kind of a disagreement fast learned that. The two of them had barely ever fought, at least, not about anything important. They would fight everyone else, they would take a fight with another person in a heartbeat, but never each other. He remembered when they had fallen out completely, in a way that he wasn't sure they would ever speak to each other again, he remembered when she had walked away from Dean and what had happened next. Truthfully, Bobby had been more than amazed to see her climb out of the back of the Impala the day before, he'd had half a mind that he was never going to see her again, but there she was. And he knew that meant that there still had to be something there, something that made her care about her brother, or she wouldn't be working a job with him.

It was hard to see two people who had once been so close, who would have fought side by side against anything, still wrapped up in their own fight from years before. It didn't matter anymore, and they couldn't seem to see that. Or, they could, and they were just ignoring it and carrying on anyway. Two people like them, who had once been such a good team, who would have died for the other in a second without thinking about it, it wasn't right for them to be the way they were there. It was like thinking about Sam and Dean never speaking to each other again, just turning their back on the other and going their separate ways, it wasn't right. Bobby knew that, he had a feeling Sam and Dean did, too. It just seemed to be something stopping Natalie from seeing that.

It was at that he noticed her walking across the parking lot, her hands were shoved in her jacket pockets, her eyes fixed on the floor ahead, as if she didn't want to look up at the car incase she engaged in eye contact with her brother. Bobby climbed out of the car without a word and swung his seat forwards, holding it there until she climbed into the backseat.

Dean looked back over his shoulder at her for a second, looking her up and down, as if he was scanning her for any damage. "Where the hell have you been all day?" he asked, not really expecting to get much of an answer from her.

Natalie rolled her eyes at him. "Lovely to see you, too." she muttered. "Where's Sam?"

Dean narrowed his eyes. "You're avoiding the question." he stated simply.

"So are you." she countered. "What time is it, anyway?"

He glanced down at his watch and raised an eyebrow. "Seven past midnight."

Bobby shook his head. "You sure this is the right place?" he asked, clearly getting tired of waiting.

"No." Dean deadpanned. "But I spent all day canvassing this stupid town, with this guys stupid mug," he reached forwards and grabbed a print out of the guy from the security camara back at the store and shook his head. "And, supposedly, he drinks at this stupid bar."

A loud pounding on the window made them all jump in surprise. They turned to see Sam on the other side, laughing to himself at the sight of his brother's face. He pulled open the door and pushed Dean's seat forward, not bothering to let him get out first, and chuckled at the uncomfortable grunt that escaped his brother before he slipped into the backseat.

"That's not funny." Dean muttered, straightening himself up and pulling the door closed behind Sam.

"Yeah, right." Sam smirked. "So, John Doe's name is Walter Rosen. He's from Oak Park, just west of Chicago. He went missing about a week ago."

Dean frowned. "The night the Devil's Gate opened?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"So, what?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "You think he's possessed?"

"It's a good bet." Sam sighed. "So, what, he just walks up to someone, touches them, and they go stark raving psycho or something?"

Bobby shook his head. "Those demons that got out at the gate, they're gonna be able to do all kinds of things we've never seen before."

"You mean the demons we_ let_ out?" Sam retorted, the self blame clear in his tone.

"Guys." They all turned their attention to Dean, who nodded off across the parking lot. They followed his eyes to where the guy from the security camera was getting out of his car, heading off towards the bar. "Alright. Showtime." he said, ready to get out of the car and follow him.

"Wait a minute." Bobby stopped him. "What did I just say?" Dean just looked at him, saying nothing. "We don't know what to expect out of this guy. We should tail him 'til we know for sure."

"Oh, so he kills someone and we just sit here with our junk in our hands?" he retorted.

"We're no good dead." Bobby snapped. "And we're not gonna make a move until we know what the score is."

"Hey, Bobby," Sam spoke up from the backseat. "I don't think that's an option." he nodded over in the direction of the bar, indicating where another car had just parked up. They watched as Isaac and Tamara climbed out and crossed the parking lot towards the doors.

"Damn it!" Bobby yelled in frustration, hitting the dash in front of him.

The four of them climbed out of the car and ran straight for the bar, pounding on the door with everything they had. The four of them hit and kicked and shoved at it but there was no getting inside.

"Get the car." Dean yelled.

Without a second thought they sprinted back to the car and threw themselves inside. Bobby drove to the front of the bar and turned the car around, so that the trunk was in line with the doors. With a screech of tires, Bobby reversed the car back through the front doors. The four of them wasted no time in jumping out of the car, armed with holy water, to face them. There were six demons crowded around Tamara, while Isaac lay dead on the floor, blood covered his mouth and neck, along with a thick yellow liquid which also split over the floor, dripping from the empty bleach bottle that lay beside him.

Sam grabbed a hold of Tamara, who was screaming frantically at the sight of her husband the way he was, and pulled her roughly back to the car. "Come on, we gotta go!" he yelled, more to her than to anyone else. "Get in the car!"

Once Bobby had realised that Sam had gotten her into the backseat and was climbing in beside her to stop her from getting out again, he moved back to the car and jumped in behind the wheel, but Natalie and Dean were nowhere close to getting back in. "Dean!" Sam yelled at him. "Natalie! Come on!"

Natalie punched a guy straight in the face, moving back to elbow a woman who came up behind her. Dean kicked a guy in the chest, punching him hard enough that he ended up falling back into the car. Sam was ready to get out and drag them back himself, but he stopped as he noticed them. Between them they worked like an unbeatable team, like they were so used to fighting together it all came so naturally to them, as if it was second nature. They moved in sync, fighting demons away from the other as much as themselves. It was when he watched her that he noticed she fought in the exact same style as Dean. It was clear who had taught her everything she knew.

He snapped back into reality, realising that his brother and sister were still way too immersed within their own fights to even notice what was going on around them.

Natalie caught sight of Dean opening the trunk of the car out of the corner of her eye, frowning in confusion until she saw the devil's trap drawn on the inside of it. She realised what his plan was and kicked the woman fighting her hard in the stomach, getting her away from them. She turned as Dean overpowered the demon he was fighting and shoved him hard into the trunk of the car. He punched him hard to stop him from sitting up as Natalie reached up and slammed the hood down, literally within half a second of Dean pulling back his hand.

"Go, go, go!" he yelled at her. They both ran around the side of the car as Dean lunged the door open. He threw himself in first, not even hesitating in grabbing a hold of Natalie around the arm and yanking her down on top of him. Before he had even closed the door behind them, Bobby slammed down on the gas and set off down the road, away from the bar.

"Smart move, guys." Sam chastised from the backseat, clearly not impressed with their reckless behaviour.

"We got the guy, didn't we?" Dean countered, shifting a little so that Natalie could get off his lap and sit beside him on the front seat, the two of them sharing the same seat.

"Yeah, and you could've gotten yourselves killed at the same time." he retorted.

Dean just shook his head, forcing a chuckle. "I know what I'm doing, Sammy." he said simply. Sam just stared at him in astonishment, saying nothing more about it.

* * *

_Isaac and Tamara's place, 01:54am._

Bobby and Natalie all but dragged Tamara back into the house, despite the fight that she was putting up. She screamed at them and struggled against their hold, desperate to get back to her husband, but they weren't letting up. Natalie clenched her jaw, the whole situation brought back too many memories that she just wanted to let go of, but she pushed back the dark thoughts and focused on the task at hand. They guided the distraught hunter into the house and into the main room. Behind them, Sam and Dean brought in the demon that had been locked in the trunk. They pushed him through to where there was a devil's trap drawn on the floor and placed a chair in the center of it, shoving him remorselessly into it before they headed into the next room.

Bobby had already busied himself with a book, seeming intent on knowing what he was searching for, and didn't bother to look up at them. He said nothing, just left them all to it.

"You can't hold me here!" Tamara shouted, not at any of them in specific. She made a move to the door but Natalie grabbed a hold of her around the arm to stop her.

"Tamara, you can't, alright? You can't." she argued, her voice remaining calm and low. "Just, hold up, okay? We'll talk about it."

"What the hell is there to talk about?!" she shrieked. "I just watched the man I love die. I'm gonna kill all of them!"

"I understand that, believe me, I do." Natalie said to her sincerely, shaking her head. "But if you walk back into that bar you're asking to die, too!"

"She's right." Sam said sternly, coming up behind Natalie, not missing what had just come out of her mouth. He made a mental note to bring that up later, if not with her then with Dean. "We're staying here."

Tamara shook her head. "We're going back!" she threw back at him. "Now!"

"Hold on a second." Sam tried to calm her down, but there was no calming her in the state she was in.

"I left my husband bloody on the floor!" she yelled at him, not seeming at all concerned anymore about whether or not they were going with her.

"Okay, I understand that," he said calmly. "But we can't go back."

"Fine," she countered. "Then you stay. I'm going back to that bar."

"I'll go with her." Dean offered up, making a move to the door without a second glance back at them.

"It's suicide, Dean!" Sam yelled after him.

Dean came to a stop and turned back to him. "So what?" he shrugged. "I'm dead already!"

"And what the hell does that mean?" Natalie snapped, frowning at him.

Dean looked down for a moment, avoiding all eye contact with her. There was no way that he could tell her, she couldn't know. She had literally just come back, he couldn't tell her anything that was going to drive her away again. He didnt' want her to know, the same way that he hadn't wanted Sam or Bobby to know. He could deal with what came in the future, but right then he wasn't prepared for a fight, not with her.

"How you gonna kill 'em?" Sam pressed, going on before Dean had to step up and answer her question. "You can't shoot 'em. You can't stab 'em. They're not just gonna wait in line to get exorcised!"

"I don't care!" Tamara screamed in frustration.

"We don't even know how many of them there are!" Sam yelled in a desperate attempt to get through to them. They just weren't listening to him.

"Yeah, we do." Bobby said from behind them. They all turned look at him standing with an open book in his hands. "There's seven. Do you have any idea who we're up against?" he asked, his voice so serious that everyone instantly calmed from the fight they had been so involved with.

"No," Dean raised his eyebrows, still appearing unconcerned. "Who?"

"The seven deadly sins," Bobby announced, looking between them. "Live and in the flesh."

Dean frowned, and then grinned to himself, nudging Natalie in the arm. "What's in the box?!" he said brightly. Natalie snorted a laugh, but quickly silenced herself when she realised that she was the only one who had seemed to react. The other three stood there and stared in disbelief. "Brad Pitt?" Dean pushed, breaking the awkward silence. "Seven?" he looked between them again for a reaction, getting nothing. "No?" Bobby slammed the book closed and shoved it at him. "What's this?" he asked, tilting an eyebrow.

"'Binsfeld's classification of demons.'" he answered, as if the name would mean something to him. "In 1589, Binsfeld ID'd the seven sins, not just as human vices but as _actual_ devils."

"The family," Sam frowned. "They were touched by Sloth. And the shopper.."

"That's Envy's doing," Bobby finished for him. "The customer we got in the next room. I couldn't suss it out at first, until Isaac." he paused for a moment, looking down. "He was touched with an awful Gluttony."

"I don't give a rat's ass if they're the Three Stooges or the Four Tops!" Tamara cut in, seeming tired of the lack of action. "I'm gonna slaughter every last one of them!"

"We already did it your way." Bobby snapped. "You burst in there half-cocked and look what happened! These demons haven't been topside in half a millennium! We're talking medieval, dark ages! We've never faced anything close to this! So we are gonna take a breath, and figure out what our next move is!" he yelled at her. He took a breath and composed himself a little. "I am sorry for your loss." he added quietly, turning and heading into the next room where they held the demon.

Sam, Dean and Natalie stood in a tense silence for a moment, it was rare that they ever saw him shout at anyone like that, it took them by surprise. They eventually followed him into the next room with Tamara, still saying nothing.

The demon chuckled as they entered, looking between them slowly. "So, you know who I am, huh?" he smirked.

"We do." Bobby replied darkly. "We're not impressed."

"Why are you here?" Sam asked simply. "What are you after?" The demon said nothing, just continued to smirk at him.

"He asked you a question." Dean said simply, not looking impressed that, even if it was a demon, his brother had been ignored. "What do you want?"

The demon just chuckled again, condescendingly, saying nothing. Not until Dean opened a flask of holy water and splashed him with it, making it burn off of him in clear white steam. He grimaced, letting out a pained groan at the feel. "We already have what we want." he growled. "We're out. We're free. Thanks to you, my kind are everywhere. I am legion, for we are many. So me, I'm just celebrating. Having a little fun."

"Fun?" Sam repeated, a disgusted look on his face.

"Yeah." he grinned. "Fun. See, some people crochet. Others golf. Me? I like to see people's insides.. on their outside."

Tamara stepped forwards to him, glaring. "I'm gonna put you down like a dog." she almost growled the words at him.

"Please." The demon laughed. "You really think you're better than me?" he asked, looking between them incredulously. "Which one of you can cast the first stone? Huh?" he narrowed his eyes when no one answered him. "What about you, Dean? You're practically a walking billboard of gluttony and lust." Dean gave a face, as if to say that he could half agree with him, but said nothing. "And little Natalie, shall we even start on the list of sins that you've been living?"

Natalie scoffed, as though his words couldn't have less of an affect on her. "You have no idea what you're talking about." she muttered.

"Hm, where to start," he smirked at her. "How about with all that anger you carry around, for your parents, your brother, at hunting, it haunts you, doesn't it?" His smirk grew wider. "And then there's the envy, especially for your brothers. They had parents who loved them, they didn't grow up the hard way, not like you did. They had each other, what did you have?" She could feel them all staring at her, but she only glared down at the demon in front of her. "And then there's the gluttony, and the greed, and the lust. All that time you spent doing nothing but rolling in money and having sex, before the cops stepped in and crashed your party, that is."

"I'm telling your right now," she warned, taking a step forwards. "Shut up."

"Hm, let's move on, shall we?" He grinned as his eyes flickered between them, until they finally fell to someone. "Tamara." he pondered. "All that wrath. Ooh." he tutted, shaking his head. "It's the reason you and Isaac became hunters in the first place, isn't it? It's so much easier to drink in the rage than to face what really happened all those years ago."

Before he could get out another word, Tamara's face twisted in anger. She lunged forwards and punched him hard in the face, ready to do it again until Dean and Bobby restrained her and pulled her back from him.

The demon only laughed at her. "My point exactly. And you call us sins." None of them said a word, just watched him. "We're not sins, man. We are natural human instinct. And you can repress and deny us all you want, but the truth is, you are just animals. Horny, greedy, hungry, violent animals. And you know what? You'll be slaughtered like animals, too." he said in a low voice, looking between them with a new and dangerous glimmer in his eyes. "The others," he smirked. "They're coming for me."

"Maybe," Dean smiled sarcastically and leaned in closer to him. "But they're not gonna find you, 'cause you'll be in hell." They stared at each other for a moment before he seemed to realise that Dean wasn't kidding around, and the smirk faded from his face. "Someone send this clown packing." he muttered darkly before turning and heading out of the room without another word.

"My pleasure." Tamara said, taking the book with the exorcism from Bobby before watching the three of them leave the room after Dean.

Bobby turned around to them and gave a sigh. "I don't think we're gonna have to worry about hunting them." he said simply.

Sam frowned. "What does that mean?"

"I think maybe this joker's right." he said, nodding over towards where Tamara was exorcising the demon. "They're gonna be hunting us. And they're not gonna quit easy."

Dean thought about it for a second, nodding. "You guys, why don't you take Natalie, and Tamara, and head for the hills?" he suggested. "I'll stay back, slow them down, buy you a little time."

"You're insane, Dean." Sam said bluntly, as if he was holding back an angrier comment. "Just forget about it, okay?"

Bobby looked between them slowly. "Sam's right." he said, knowing that they couldn't say a word about the deal while Natalie was in the room. They couldn't afford to have that conversation now, even if Dean had been willing for her to know. They weren't in a position to argue, any of them. They needed to be focused on the job.

"There's six of them, guys." Dean countered. "We're outmanned, we're outgunned. We'll be dead by dawn."

"Maybe, but there's no place to run where they won't find us." Bobby said simply, giving him a look that told him to stop because he just wouldn't win.

"Look, if we're going down, we're going down together, alright?" Sam said bluntly, a tone which Dean had learned over the years meant don't argue with him.

Dean sighed, he could feel Natalie watching him, if he put up much more of an argument he knew she would start asking questions. "Then let's not make it easy for them." he said darkly.

A loud scream came from the next room, followed by a sharp gust of wind that successfully blew out all of the candles being used to light the room. They all turned as Tamara slammed the book closed and walked briskly into the room. "Demon's out of the guy." she stated simply.

"And the guy?" Sam pressed cautiously, as though he wasn't sure he wanted to know what the answer was going to be.

"He didn't make it." she replied coldly, not looking back as she headed straight out of the room and slammed a door closed behind herself.

Sam sighed deeply. "I think it's time we put down some salt lines." he said quietly, turning and heading out of the room. Bobby followed him, not saying a word.

Natalie didn't move. She stood and watched Dean for a moment, waiting until she was sure that everyone else was out of hearing distance, and gave a small sigh. "Is it just me, or are you a little more reckless than what you used to be?" she asked him, her voice was light and casual, but there was a seriousness somewhere beneath her words. "And, it wasn't like you were ever particularly cautious in the first place." she added knowingly.

Dean just raised an eyebrow at her. "Why, Natalie, I didn't know you cared." he replied sarcastically.

She frowned, as though the comment bothered her. "Hey, we might not be as close as what we used to be -"

"Yeah," Dean cut her off. "And whose fault is that?"

She ignored him and shook her head to herself. "But that doesn't mean that I don't care about you." she finished, as though he had never interrupted.

"Well, gee, thanks, Natalie." he said, throwing her a sarcastic smile. "I'll remember that after we finish the job and you're ditching our asses. Again."

Her eyebrows shot up at that. "Hold up," she frowned. "Are you actually being a dick with me because I'm not sticking around?"

"What do you want from me, Natalie?" he sighed, defeated. "Huh?"

He didn't know what to say to her. As far as he was concerned, she was saying that she cared about him but she was all too ready to walk away from him and never look back. He didn't know what he was supposed to think. Everything about her since she had come back into his life confused him. He just didn't understand her anymore, not in the way that he used to, and that was because she was refusing to let him in. But then, he remembered when he had first met her, it had taken her a long time to open up to him about anything. It had been weeks before she had told him much about herself, before she had confessed to everything that she had been through, the good and the bad. A part of him thought that maybe they just needed to fall back into their old routine, that she needed to realise again that she could trust him.

"I wanna know what the hell is up with you." she said bluntly. "Why are you suddenly so willing to throw yourself into danger?"

Dean shook his head. "I'm just doing what needs to be done to get the job finished." he replied simply, his voice hard, defensive. "That's all there is to it." With that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.

"Yeah," she muttered to herself, shaking her head at him. "I'm sure."

* * *

_A/N - So, I wanted to take a second to say a massive thank you to everyone who has read this story so far, for the favourites and follows, and for the amazing reviews! The support means the entire world to me, so thank you so much to every single one of you!_

_I always try to reply to reviewers directly through PM, but if I missed anyone out then I apologise. But thank you to sweetkiwi604, RebornRose1992, xRachelxBrowniex, Jenmm31, BlossomLossy, and to those who reviewed with guest accounts! And a special thank you to loveintheimpala who has helped me so much with this story, and who spends hours of her time editing for me, I couldn't do it without you!_

_And, I know I've had reviews saying that you're curious as to what happened in the past between Dean and Natalie, it'll all come out very soon, so don't worry, I won't keep you in suspense forever! The next chapter will reveal more about what happened to her, particularly during her time in and before she went to prison. I will eventually show everything that has happened to her, so nothing will ever be untold. _

_Oh, also, I don't know if you can tell or not from the cover picture for the story, I based the looks of Natalie on the character Alex Vause from 'Orange Is The New Black' who is played by Laura Prepon. I put up some links to a few gifs and pictures of her in my bio incase you want to get a better idea of her look._

_I hope that the chapters aren't too long. I know that I can get carried away when I'm writing sometimes. This one had gotten to about twenty-three thousand words when I was ready to post it so I decided to split it in half, so feel free to let me know if you prefer them at this length or the ones they had been before, it's just it takes longer to get the whole thing up if the chapters are shorter, but if it's easier for you guys then that's totally fine. I know how it can be reading so much in one go haha!_

_Anyway, thank you again for the support and for taking the time to read it, hope you're all still enjoying it and don't forget to review! :-) Keep a look out for the next chapter, I'll have it up soon!_

_Have a great week!_


	5. Forced Goodbyes

**Chapter 5: Forced Goodbyes**

_Isaac and Tamara's place, 3:34am._

Dean headed through the dark house, looking for his brother and sister. He hadn't seen them for a good half hour since he had been with Bobby, he hadn't even noticed them leave the room when they had. His head was still completely focused on what Natalie had said to him about leaving straight after they were done with the hunt. He knew how strong-willed she was, she had always been that way, when she made a decision she usually stuck by it completely. He hoped that this wasn't one of those times. There was something off about her, he couldn't tell what it was, but something about the way she was acting made him think that there was another reason she was so desperate to get away from them, he just couldn't work out what that was.

He headed into the next room to find Natalie sitting on the floor, her back rested up against an old, decrepid sofa, as she loaded up a shotgun. Sam sat at the other side of the room while he filled up flasks of holy water, a blank look on his face. Dean looked between them slowly before he took a seat on the floor in front of a row of candles, taking the opportunity to load up his own shotgun. Sam looked up and gave him a small smile, his way of telling him that everything was good without them needing to break the silence. He looked to Natalie who had a small frown on her face, looking as if she was in some kind of pain.

"You alright?" he asked her, frowning a little.

She glanced up at his question and gave a small nod. "Yeah, I'm good." Dean just raised his eyebrows as if to say he knew better. "Headache."

A smile suddenly crossed his face. "Probably all that reading without your nerd glasses." he commented. She looked up at him and shook her head slowly, trying and failing to push back a smirk. "You didn't think I remembered, did you?" Natalie just looked at him, and that's when he realised. "You still.." he paused, pushing back a laugh. "You still wear 'em, don't you?" he grinned.

"Shut up." she laughed, stretching out a leg to kick him lightly.

"No, I'm kidding." he chuckled. "They were cute." Sam found himself smiling as he looked between them, they seemed to get on so well, he just didn't understand what the problem was. "Bet it feels weird, right?" Dean suddenly asked, glancing up at Natalie. "Few days ago you were on lockdown in prison." he smirked at her.

Natalie gave a weak laugh and nodded. "Yeah," she said simply. "Little bit."

"You know, you still haven't told me what happened there." Dean pressed, his eyes fixed on her expectantly. "I said to you when we came to see you that you had to explain everything once we got out."

"What?" she asked, not seeming to be following what he was talking about.

"You haven't explained anything, Nat." She looked down, avoiding eye contact. "In fact, there's quite a lot of stuff that I want to know about your time in prison." If she was leaving, he was making sure he had the answers he wanted before she bailed. "Like, I don't know, how you ended up in prison in the first place. I wanna know why you went back to that life when you swore to me you wouldn't go back there, or what was going on in your head when you were stupid enough to get yourself caught. I taught you better than that, Natalie, I know I did."

Natalie sighed, shaking her head. She could tell that he was getting aggravated. "Dean, there's really nothing to tell." she said flatly, hoping that he would just leave it. It wasn't like him to interrogate her in the middle of a hunt, he usually waited until it was over if he thought he was going to have an argument with her.

"You went to prison for trafficking drugs, Natalie." Dean countered. "That's not nothing. What the hell happened to you? How would you even get into that?"

"Dean," she sighed. "You know the kind of people I hung around with back there. When I left you I went back home, I mean, where else was I supposed to go?" she didn't sound proud of herself for what she was saying. "It started off just doing a favour for a friend of mine, I didn't really think anything of it. But when this guy came to me, he offered me a fortune just to take a suitcase of money through customs. And when you have no money, when you have nothing going for you and you're living on your friend's couch, if someone makes you that kind of an offer, you don't turn it down."

"And, going to prison for all this never crossed your mind?" he pressed, raising his eyebrows at her as though she was stupid. "I thought you were smarter than that."

"You know what, it didn't." she answered honestly. "And, at the time, it didn't matter. I thought I'd never get caught. I thought that I was in control, and for a while I was." she looked down at her lap for a moment, shaking her head. "But that was when I only trafficked drugs." she added quietly.

"Nat," he shook his head slowly. "Tell me you didn't." Dean stared at her, he could see the guilt in her eyes, the shame on her face, he knew. He wanted her to say no, to tell him that she wouldn't, but he could see it on her face, she wasn't lying to him. She rarely did.

Natalie just shrugged. "I don't know what happened, I can't explain it." she sighed and pulled a hand down her face, sitting up a little straighter. "I was in a rough place, and it was just there. It was always there, and it made me feel better." she scoffed. "But everything fucks you in the end, right? We all got caught, and we all got time."

Sam shook his head. "How do you even know these kind of people?" he asked. Sure, Dean had said that she'd grown up rough, not with the best people, but he hadn't thought he'd meant it to that extent. "How can you have_ friends_ who ask you to import drugs for them as a favour?"

Natalie shrugged nonchalantly. "I grew up with those kind of people. My Mom was into drugs, she always had some kind of a dealer hanging around the house. After a while I just stayed out of the way, I had friends who used them, but I never took anything." she paused for a moment and cleared her throat. "By the time I went back there, after I was done hunting, they were all involved in trafficking it. I needed a job, and there it was. I mean, I was great at my job, I had more money than I knew what to do with, and then I met my girlfriend.." Dean raised his eyebrows at her, his interest clearly sparked at that. "Her name was Taylor. The two of us travelled the world, you know, we had a great life. But eventually, she got sick of it. She didn't wanna be involved with something like that anymore, she didn't wanna live like that, and she left."

"And that's when you started using stuff?" Sam pressed, sounding sympathetic towards her.

"So, hold up," Dean cut in before she had the chance to answer him. "Your story here is that you left hunting, you moved back home and got yourself a job trafficking drugs, split with your girlfriend, had some kind of an emotional breakdown and then got yourself arrested?"

Dean narrowed his eyes at her, he wasn't sure he bought that. There was more to it than she was telling them. He knew she was stronger than that. It would take way more than a break up with someone to make her fall into the place she had ended up. There wasn't much that could break his sister, she was keeping something back from them. And he knew that she could tell he was onto her lies. She just didn't say anything about it.

Natalie nodded, like she couldn't care less what Dean thought of her anymore. "Pretty much." she muttered. "When I met her, I was pretty messed up. And then when she left me, I was just on my own again, my past caught up with me, and I cracked. I started taking it and," she shook her head. "I don't know. I hit rock bottom when I got to prison, but eventually, I realised I wasn't that broken up about being in prison, it wasn't that bad. I mean, I cleaned myself up, got myself off drugs, made some friends, I was fine."

"You were fine until you murdered someone, you mean?" Dean cut in, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Yeah," she scoffed. "That's what I mean." she muttered.

Dean frowned at her. "What the hell happened with that?" he asked, lowering his voice slightly. "Why would you kill someone like that?"

* * *

_Three months earlier_

Natalie stirred out of her sleep, not something unusual for her, prison wasn't always an easy place to sleep in at the best of times, it was always handy to learn to sleep with one eye open there. These days, she only slept about three or four hours at the most, the rest of the night she just lay there, thinking. She turned over and breathed out deeply, sitting up at the sound of a loud crash coming from the direction of the showers. She slowly looked around, everyone else appeared to be sleeping soundly, there was no one else around at all.

"Don't get involved, Nat." she whispered to herself. "Nothing to do with you."

But at the sound of another bang, she couldn't help herself. Her curiosity got the better of her. She slowly climbed out of bed and looked around, there was no sign of anything out of place. She headed off in the direction of the noises and came to a stop at the sight of a woman standing in front of one of the bathroom mirrors, her back to Natalie. Even without seeing her face, she knew who it was.

The woman slowly turned around to face her, but the eyes that met Natalie's weren't the ones she had been expecting. They were cold, they were black, and they were evil. It was a demon.

Natalie thought that she had seen the back of hunting, she thought that she had escaped it two years earlier when she and Dean had gone their separate ways, but she had clearly been wrong. It had caught up with her. And now, she was in prison with no weapon and no back up and no defence. She was screwed.

"Natalie Scott." The demon smirked at her cruelly. "Or, should I say Natalie Winchester." she chuckled. Natalie frowned at her, confused. "That's right, we know all about you, Nat. We know all about John Winchester's secret child."

Natalie scoffed. "You're a little late on that aren't you?" she muttered sarcastically. "What do you want?"

The demon smirked. "Don't you remember me?" But Natalie just frowned, clearly she didn't. "You and your brother exorcised me, you sent me down to hell." she smirked and stepped forwards, getting in Natalie's face. "Well, now I'm back, and I'm sending down to where you sent me."

Natalie pushed forward a smirk, never letting an ounce of fear show itself in her eyes. "I'd like to see you try." she said in a low, dangerous voice, challenging her.

"Tough words for a girl without holy water." A smug smirk crossed her face. "And I don't imagine you'll have that big brother of yours running to your defence in here. You're all on your own."

"You don't scare me." she said simply, matching the demon's glare with her own.

"I should do." she grinned and pulled out a knife, pointing it in Natalie's direction. The demon raised a hand and pushed her back into the tiled wall with an unseen force, the impact of it making her cry out in pain. She released her and immediately threw her across to the other side of the room, smashing her into one of the mirrors on the wall with a loud crash.

Natalie groaned in pain and rolled over onto her back, letting out a small whimper at the burning in her ribs, which she could feel were at least cracked. She made a lame attempt to push herself up again but couldn't find the strength.

"You're gonna die, Natalie." she laughed, looking down at her.

There had never been a time that she had given up halfway through a hunt, there had never been a time that she would walk away from a fight or try to back out of something, no matter how bad the odds were that she would win. She wasn't about to start now. She summoned the strength from somewhere and rolled onto her side, managing to push herself up into a sitting position. She coughed in pain and spat out the blood from her mouth, glaring up at the demon.

A smirk tugged at the side of her mouth. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii -" She stopped abruptly as she was kicked in the chest by the demon.

"Not this time, kid." she almost growled the words at her.

Before she could think to get another word of latin out, the demon turned the knife on herself and stabbed herself in the heart. Natalie clenched her jaw and closed her eyes for a second, she was done and she knew it. The sound of footsteps sounded from behind them, coming closer to the bathroom.

"I'll be back for you." she smirked, before she opened her mouth and screamed as the thick black smoke left her. The second the scream died down into nothing, the body dropped down to the floor with a thud, unmoving and the front covered with blood.

Natalie scrambled towards her and pulled out the knife. She pressed down on the wound with her hands, wincing a little at the feeling of blood soaking through to her hands. She was gone, she was dead, and it was her fault.

* * *

_Present_

Dean shook his head slowly. Sam watched her, a sympathetic look in his eyes as he listened to every word she said to them. There was a despondent look in her eyes, a look of guilt and pain. She clearly felt awful about what had happened, and she clearly still blamed herself for what had happened to her.

"I should have saved her." she said quietly, looking down at her lap, refusing to face either of her brothers.

"Natalie, it wasn't your fault." Sam said simply, his voice was soft and understanding. "It doesn't sound like there was a lot you could've done for her."

She scoffed. "That's not the point, is it?" she countered. "It's just another person who's gotten killed because of what we do. It's not fair."

Dean narrowed his eyes at her, there was a pain in her eyes as she said that beyond what had happened in prison, he knew that, and he had a feeling he knew what it was about. But he said nothing, that wasn't something that he could bring up. He couldn't bring up that because it would only start up the conversation of why she and Dean had fallen out and split in the first place, he couldn't afford that now. They were memories that he didn't want to relive. He knew that she still blamed herself over what had happened, even if it hadn't been her fault.

"Natalie," Dean sighed. "I -"

But he stopped at the sound of the radio crackling up. The lights flickered as the radio came on, playing a scratchy piece of music that filled the room. The three of them looked between each other, saying nothing for a moment.

Dean cocked the shotgun in his hands and pushed himself to his feet. "Here we go."

They moved to the boarded up windows and looked through the gaps in the wood. It was dark outside, making it hard to identify anything between the thick trees surrounding the house.

There was the sound of a man shouting off somewhere in the distance, too far away for them to work out what was going on. As he got closer, they could hear that he was calling Tamara's name, it was Isaac, or, at least, Isaac's body. He came into the light, out of the shadows of the trees, and made his way closer to the house.

"Tamara!" he yelled at the top of his voice, almost certainly making sure that he could be heard by her. "Tamara! I got away, but I'm hurt bad! I need help!" There was no sound from downstairs, no indication that she was doing anything about the demon possessing her dead husband's corpse. They all turned at the sound of him pounding on the front door of the house. "Baby! Why won't you let me in? You left me behind back there. How could you do that? We swore... At that lake in Michigan. Remember? We swore we would never leave each other!" There was still no sound from below them, all of them equally as concerned as each other about the grieving woman downstairs. "You just gonna leave me out here? You just gonna let me die?!" His voice turned darker when there was no answer. "I guess that's what you do, dear! Like that night those things came to our house... came for our _daughter_! You just let her die, too!"

That was enough, she cracked. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed out, shoving her way out of the front door, breaking the salt line as she did, before she lunged herself at him. They both went toppling to the bottom of the steps and down onto the road.

"You're not Isaac!" she screamed as she plunged the wooden stake down into his chest, making him scream in complete agony.

From out of nowhere, the other demons appeared, running towards the house. From where they stood they could clearly see them running straight past Tamara and Isaac's body towards the front door. "Ah, crap." Dean muttered, shaking his head. He gave a quick look between Sam and Natalie and nodded. "Alright, let's do this."

Without another word he gripped his shotgun tighter in his hand and headed out of the room, looking up and down the hallway slowly. He rounded the corner at the end and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the waitress from back in the bar standing right in front of him, a devilish smirk on her face. She advanced towards him, the smirk only growing more and more seductive, as she backed him into the bathroom.

"I suppose you're lust." he said simply, continuing to back away from her.

She smiled at him as he came to a stop. "Baby, I'm whatever you want me to be."

Dean shot her a sarcastic glare, unsure what else he could do at that point. "Just stay back." he warned, no real warning in his tone at all.

"Or what?" she countered, looking up at him as though she knew she had him beat.

He considered it for a moment, and then shrugged a little. "Good point."

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Dean frowned a little, confused. "Not yet. Not unless you want me to." she reached up and ran a hand along his shoulder, smirking.

Dean continued to look down at her, unable to hold back anymore, and fell into her embrace. His lips crashed forcefully to hers, to the point that, if he could get a straight thought in his head, he would have been amazed that neither of their lips split with the impact. He felt nothing else around him, nothing but the pure passion that seemed to come from the woman gripped in his hands. He was completely lost in it.

The demon was vigorously pulled away from him, hitting him like a slap to the face as he seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had been locked within. He blinked hard as his thoughts came crashing back to him to see Natalie standing behind the demon, a hand wrapped in the back of her hair as she had pulled her away from him.

"Someone hasn't changed." she commented simply, raising her eyebrows at Dean sarcastically. "Keep it in your pants, man."

Dean opened his mouth to make some sarcastic response but stopped as demon turned around sharply to face Natalie, only earning herself a punch in the face, knocking her back enough that she almost stumbled into his chest. She punched her again, this time harder, and then again. It was only when the demon pulled out a knife from the back of her jeans that Natalie took a step back from her, clenching her fists at her sides, ready to take her.

The three of them stood there in a silence for a moment before Natalie nodded at her brother, almost undetectable. He took the hint and cleared his throat. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas," the demon whipped around to face him, ready to attack, but Natalie moved quicker and punched her away from him. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica,"

The demon span around and threw Dean across the room into the wall, sending him down to the ground with a thud and a pained groan. She turned on Natalie before she'd even had a chance to think up what came next in the exorcism and drove the knife straight into the side of her stomach.

"Motherfu -" she stopped herself short as she pulled the knife from her stomach and dropped it down to the floor with a thud, holding a hand to her stomach as if she could hold in the pain with the blood.

Before she could even react further, Dean somehow found himself on his feet again and pushed his sister out of the way before landed a punch straight to the demon's face. He grabbed a firm hold of her hair and yanked back a shower curtain, plunging her face first into a bathtub full of holy water. She screamed in agony, struggling against his harsh grip.

"Ergo, draco maledicte, ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi, nos!" Natalie finished it, taking a step back from the bathtub as the girl lunged back and the black smoke poured from inside her, burning down through the floorboards around them.

Dean dropped her body to the ground, temporarily forgetting all about her, and turned to his sister. There was a worried frown on his face, the concern showing all over his features. "You okay?" he asked seriously, looking her up and down.

Natalie spat out some blood and pulled back a hand from her stomach, groaning a little at the sight of the blood covering her palm, and nodded. "I'm awesome." she muttered, more sarcasm than sincerity.

He scoffed, shaking his head a little. "Yeah," he nodded, not buying it for a second. "I'd forgotten how tough you were."

Dean knew for a fact that she would never admit to being in pain. She would take a knife to the stomach and pull it straight back out and carry on before she ever admitted that something had hurt her. She refused to show any kind of vulnerability on a hunt, she always had done. He knew that she would complain for days about something as small as a papercut, but she wouldn't give a bullet or stab wound a second thought.

"Come on." she said simply, turning and heading out of the room without another word, stepping out into the hallway. He followed right behind her, geared up and ready to be attacked.

As they made their way down the hallway, Sam turned around the corner to come face to face with them, letting out a heavy breath at the sight of them. "We took out Lust." Dean said, looking his brother up and down for any kind of damage.

Sam nodded slowly. "Pride, Gluttony and Greed are in there, dead. And I think Bobby had Sloth in a devil's trap downstairs."

Dean thought about it for a moment, a feeling of relief washing through him. "We already took out Envy, and Tamara took out the one inside Isaac." he nodded. "That's all of 'em. Go us." he said lightly, turning to head off in the opposite direction.

"Hey, wait." Sam stopped him before he could go anywhere. "There was a girl."

Dean turned completely, raising his eyebrows in sudden interest. "A girl?" he repeated, looking up and down the hallway slowly, as if he expected someone to come out and introduce themselves to him. "Who?"

"I don't know who she was. I was being cornered by these three demons and she just showed up. I mean, she swooped in, took out the demons and she left, barely said a word to me." he shrugged. "But, she knew my name. And she had this knife, she could kill demons with it."

"A knife?" Dean cut in, frowning at him as if he was talking in another language.

"Yeah, she stabbed 'em, and they just went down, dead."

Dean pulled a hand down his face, giving a long groan, he was way too tired for it. "Wow." he commented. "She's gotta be the next job." He huffed a laugh and turned to lead the way downstairs, heading into the living room of the house just as Bobby was finishing up reading the exorcism of the demon he had in a devil's trap. Tamara was nowhere to be seen, but they could all take a pretty good guess at where she was, so no one asked about her, deciding to leave her to mourn her husband in peace.

Bobby closed the book in his hands and placed it down onto the table beside the devil's trap, turning to face the three of them. "You kids alright?" he asked, his eyes coming to a stop at the sight of Natalie's blood covered shirt, a concerned frown finding its way to his brow.

"Fine." she nodded. "We got stuff to do, right?" she added, making a move to turn away from them.

"Hey." Dean grabbed a hard grip of her around the arm, pulling her to stand in front of him. "Natalie, show me."

Natalie regarded him for a moment, as if she was debating whether to walk away or play dumb, but decided on simply shaking her head at him. "It's not a big deal, seriously." she muttered nonchalantly.

Dean only glared at her, saying nothing, but gave her a look that warned her he wasn't taking it. She sighed in defeat and pulled up her t-shirt, showing him the wound. There was blood covering her stomach and the left side of the waistband of her jeans, she was still bleeding heavily from the cut.

"Sammy, patch her up, will you?" he said, shaking his head at her in disbelief. He didn't understand why she refused to admit that she was ever in pain, sometimes he honestly considered the fact that she just couldn't feel it at all, because she could put on a pretty good performance that she couldn't. Sam nodded slowly, taking the first aid kit from his brother. "We'll take care of some of these bodies." he added in a low voice, both him and Bobby turning to leave the room.

* * *

_Two hours later, 06:34am. _

Natalie headed over the grass towards where Tamara was standing. Isaac's body burned on the top of a pyre, the flames reflecting in the tears that so expertly clung to her eyelashes, refusing to fall down her cheeks. She sighed a little and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, slowing her walk a little as she got closer. It was a horrible thing to see someone like that, to watch them say goodbye to someone they had loved so much, it physically hurt her to see, but she swallowed it back and took a deep breath, composing herself.

A part of her had to think that maybe they could have done things differently, that maybe if they had thought up a better plan or they had gotten to the bar earlier, or maybe if they had worked harder to convince them not to go there in the first place, maybe he would still be alive. Maybe things could have been different. It was something that plagued her mind after almost every hunt. Every time she saw someone die, every time there was someone that they hadn't been able to save, she would mentally analyse ever single scenario that could make things different, she always had done. Dean used to be able to see when her mind had gone there, he would sit down with her and make it right, he would convince her that there was nothing more that they could have done, even in the times when he didn't believe it himself, but he always made it better. Her eyes fell to where her brothers were standing over an open grave, one throwing inside salt and the other petrol, as a small sigh escaped her. She really wished that things could be different and the two of them could go back to being the way they had been before, but she knew that couldn't happen.

Tamara didn't look up as she came to a stop beside her, barely even acknowledging that there was another person standing there. Her mind was clearly miles away, and Natalie couldn't blame her for that. "I'm sorry about your husband." she said softly. Tamara looked as though she wanted to fight her on that comment, but she got it, she really did, and so she continued before she had the chance to. "And, I understand that it's no consolation, but if you need anything, just give us a call, okay?"

Tamara slowly tore her gaze away from the fire in front of them and looked at her. There were tears shining in her eyes, unshed, and a small quiver in her bottom lip, as though she was fighting with everything she had in her not to cry. "Thank you." she whispered. Natalie nodded, saying nothing. "Can I ask you," she paused for a long second, taking a small breath to compose herself. "You said you understood.." Natalie frowned, as if she didn't know what she was talking about, because she genuinely didn't. "Last night, when I said that I'd watched the man that I love die, and that I was going to kill all of those demons, you said that you understood.. Did you lose someone?"

Natalie's face went dark for a second, it wasn't something she ever liked to talk about, or even think about, but she managed a small nod. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Yeah, about two years ago. He, uh," she shook her head. "I know how you feel."

She took a breath and shook her head slowly. "I thought losing our daughter was the last time I would ever feel like this, that it was the last time anything could hurt as much as that night did, but.." Tears built up even more as she struggled to keep her words steady. Tamara seemed to realise that it wasn't something that either of them could really face talking about, and nodded slowly. "I'm sorry." she rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment and offered a small smile before she turned and headed off to her truck.

Natalie watched her go, feeling something sink in her own chest as her eyes fell back to the body burning before her. She had once been a normal woman, someone who'd had a husband and a daughter, and they had both been taken from her, and now she was alone. Natalie was lucky, she had two brothers, but Tamara didn't. She had all that pain, and all that anger, to shoulder by herself, it wasn't fair. She wished that things were different for people like her, but wishing never got anyone anywhere, everything was just dark. And she was suddenly reminded why she felt the way she did about the life.

With a heavy sigh, she dragged her feet over towards where Sam, Dean and Bobby were standing over the open grave. They looked up at her, she didn't miss the sympathy written all over Dean's face, as if he knew exactly where her head was at, but she said nothing, just looked down at the bodies lying the grave. "Any of them survive?" she asked, looking up at Bobby as if she was silently pleading with him to say yes.

He nodded slowly. "The pretty girl and the heavy guy, they'll make it." he shrugged. "Lifetime of therapy bills ahead, but, still.."

"That's more than you can say for these poor bastards." Dean finished for him, shaking his head a little to himself as his eyes scanned the grave below.

Sam let out a sigh. "Bobby, that knife, what kind of blade can kill a demon?"

Bobby looked at a loss. "Yesterday, I would have said there was no such thing." he replied, glancing up at Sam.

"I'm just gonna ask it again, who was that masked chick?" Dean pushed lightly, raising his eyebrows at his brother expectantly. "Actually, the more troubling question would be, how come a _girl_ can fight better than you?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Three demons, Dean." he defended himself. "At once."

Dean scoffed, looking amused at the thought, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Whatever it takes to get you through the night, pal." he smirked to himself.

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother. "I seem to recall someone else having their ass saved by a girl, Dean." he countered. "So, how come Natalie, a girl half your size, can fight better than you, hm?"

He scoffed, rolling his eyes at him. "I trained her." he quipped. "I taught her how to fight like that purely for the purpose of having her there to save my ass. What's your excuse?"

Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "Hey, if you want another troubling question, I got one for you." Dean and Natalie looked up at him, eyebrows raised. "If we let out the seven deadly sins, what else did we let out?"

None of them said a word, because it was something that had seriously crossed all of their minds at some point during that night. It was a horrible, daunting thought. "You're right." Dean commented. "That is troubling." he sparked up the matches and tossed them down onto the grave, igniting the lighter fluid.

They glanced back over their shoulders as Tamara headed over to them, a small smile forced to her face. "I'll see you four around." she said simply, no real emotion in her voice. None of them answered, just nodded in acknowledgement to her.

"Tamara?" Bobby called, stopping her as she opened the door to her truck. She paused and turned to face him. "The world just got a lot scarier. Be careful."

"Yeah," She nodded slowly. "You, too." she said, before she climbed inside and set off down the driveway, leaving them behind.

Bobby sighed deeply. "Keep your eyes peeled for omens." he muttered. "I'll do the same."

"You got it." Dean replied blankly.

Sam shot him a look before he could turn to walk away, a look which Bobby knew all too well to ask what it meant. He gave a short nod to the youngest brother and sighed, clearly he wasn't too happy about what Sam was asking, but he wasn't going to say no, because he understood the reason behind it.

"Hey, Natalie?" Bobby turned to her. "Uh, why don't you come give the place one last look around with me, yeah?" he suggested. "Just make sure that we haven't missed anything."

She frowned, looking to be confused by the request, but nodded anyway. "Yeah, sure." she replied simply.

Dean looked about as confused as Natalie had done at the strange question, but said nothing. He turned to Sam, who just watched the two of them walk away to the house, never looking back. He didn't look concerned about it, he didn't even look like he cared, his face was blank, unreadable.

"What was that about?" Dean asked, genuinely curious. He had the feeling that Sam knew something he didn't.

Sam's eyes fell back to him, a serious look on his face. "We need to talk, Dean." he said bluntly, not really leaving his brother much room to argue with him.

Dean sighed, defeated. "Not again." he mumbled, shaking his head. He knew when Sam had that look on his face they were going to talk, whether he wanted to or not. "Sam, listen -"

"I think we need to go to Louisiana." Sam told him bluntly. He knew that Dean would want a reason, and he didn't want to give it in front of Natalie. She didn't know, and it wasn't his place to tell her. It had to come from Dean.

The statement seemed to take Dean completely off guard, as if it had been anything but what he had been expecting to hear. "What?" he frowned. "Little early for Mardi Gras, isn't it?" he quipped.

"Yeah. Listen, I was talking to Tamara, and she mentioned this hoodoo priest outside of Shreveport that might be able to help us out. You know, with your," he paused, like he really didn't want to bring himself to say it. "With your demon deal."

Dean thought about it for a second and pulled his face. "Nah." he commented simply, as though he couldn't have cared less about the idea.

"Nah?" Sam repeated incredulously, raising his eyebrows. "What does that mean, 'nah'?"

"Sam," Dean sighed. "No hoodoo spell is gonna break this deal. It's a goose chase." he said flatly.

"We don't know that." Sam argued, he clearly wasn't giving up the argument without a fight.

"Yes, we do. Forget it. She can't help." Sam opened his mouth to say something but Dean didn't give him a chance. "We're not going, and that's that." he added bluntly. Sam said nothing for a moment, just stared at his brother, as if waiting for him to crack and change his mind about the situation. "What about Reno, huh?" Dean added brightly, slapping Sam lightly in the chest as he turned to head to the car.

"You know what?" Sam grabbed a hold of his arm before he could move. "I've had it." he said simply. "I've been bending over backwards trying to be nice to you, and," he shrugged. "I don't care anymore."

Dean scoffed. "That didn't last long."

"Yeah, well, you know what? I've been busting my ass trying to keep you alive, Dean, and you act like you couldn't care less." he argued, he was getting worked up, clearly pissed off and frustrated with his brother. "What, you got some kind of death wish or something?"

Dean shook his head. "It's not like that."

"Then what's it like, Dean?" Sam pressed, because he genuinely wanted to know. He understood why he had made the deal, hell, he would've done the same thing if it had been the other way around, but what he couldn't understand was why he wouldn't even try to get himself out of it, he wouldn't even try to save himself. It was like he just didn't want to be saved, and Sam couldn't understand it.

"Sam -" He went to argue, but Sam wanted answers, and he wasn't giving up.

"Please," he pressed. "Tell me."

Dean sighed, clearly defeated and tired of arguing. "We trap the crossroads demon, trick it, try to welch our way out of the deal in any way? You die. Okay? You die." he said bluntly. "Those are the terms, there's no way out of it. If you try to find a way, so help me god, I'm gonna stop you."

Sam sighed. "How could you make that deal, Dean?" he asked, his voice much softer than it had been before.

Dean shrugged. "Because, I couldn't live with you dead." he replied simply. "Couldn't do it."

"So, what, now I live and you die?" Just the idea of that concept hurt Sam. The thought that he would be alive and well while Dean was burning in hell, in some horrific place he could never escape, it was too much to even think about.

"That's the general idea, yeah." Dean said lightly, the smirk holding on his face as he turned to head to the Impala again.

But Sam wasn't done. "Yeah, well, you're a hypocrite, Dean." he said, striding forwards to get in front of his brother, stopping him so they were once again face to face. "How did you feel when Dad sold his soul for you? 'Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted and broken. And now, you go and do the same thing to me." There was nothing but accusation in his voice. "What you did was selfish."

But Dean still didn't appear to care. "Yeah, you're right." he agreed. "It was selfish. But I'm okay with that."

Sam shook his head at him. "I'm not." he replied bluntly.

"Tough." Dean retorted. "After everything I've done for this family, I think I'm entitled." he paused for a second and sighed. "Truth is, I'm tired, Sam. And, I don't know, it's like there's a light at the end of the tunnel."

"That's hellfire, Dean." Sam deadpanned, sounding even less impressed with him than he had before.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever." he muttered. "You're alive, hell, we've got our sister back, I feel good - for the first time in a long time." he shrugged. "I got a year to live, Sam. I'd like to make the most of it. So, what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell, huh?" He smiled brightly and nodded at him.

Sam sighed, there was just no getting through to him. "You're unbelievable." he muttered.

The smirk on Dean's face widened. "Very true."

Sam shook his head at him. "And what about Natalie in all of this?" That was enough to hit him. His face fell for a second before he composed himself. "You drag her back into this life, and what? She's not stupid, Dean. She's gonna work out something's up eventually. And then what, you're still gonna lie? You're still gonna pretend that everything's fine?" He took a step closer to him, getting defensive. "What happens in a year when you're being dragged to hell and you didn't tell her? How do you think that's gonna make her feel? You don't wanna save yourself, that's fine, whatever, but lying to her face for an entire year is just cruel. And I'm not gonna do it."

Dean's face fell at his words. "You can't tell her, Sammy, please." It was the first real emotion he'd shown all day.

"No, Dean, you can't keep something like that from her. It's not fair. I've known her, what, barely three days, and I can already see how much she cares about you, there's no hiding it." he sighed. "And whatever went on between you both, she's obviously let go. You can't lie to her like this."

"Sam -"

Sam shook his head. "Look, I'm not letting it go, and I'm not about to spend the next year creeping around and not mentioning it to her." he shrugged, giving Dean a serious look. "So, ether you tell her, or I will."

Dean paused for a moment, thinking it over. It wasn't worth telling her. Nothing had changed, she was still leaving, he wasn't going to see her again, he knew that. She wouldn't come back, because she didn't change her mind when she made choices like that. He had learned that over the two years that he had spent with her. If Sam told her, she would want to stay. And he wouldn't have her with him out of guilt. Whatever the real reason she didn't want to be there was, he didn't know, but she didn't want to share it with them and he couldn't make her. There wasn't a lot that he could do. But he wasn't going to weigh her down with something like that when she was trying to do everything she could to get away from them.

"It doesn't matter." he said quietly, finally returning his gaze to Sam.

Sam frowned at him. "Which part doesn't matter?" he asked, now confused as to what Dean was getting at.

Dean wet his lips, he didn't want to be the one to tell him, but he didn't have much of a choice. "She's leaving, Sammy." he said simply, no emotion showing in his voice. And that only meant one thing, he was upset about it. "She told me earlier, as soon as the hunt was over she was gone." he shrugged.

Sam's anger faded from his face almost immediately. He looked upset, hurt even, at the news. "Dean," he shook his head remorsefully, he knew how much Dean had wanted it to work out, he had, too. "Man, I'm sorry."

Dean just shook his head, as though it didn't bother him. "Forget about it." he muttered.

They looked up as Natalie headed towards them, pushing up a small smile as she looked between them. She came to a stop and gave a shrug. There was a soft frown on Sam's face, showing sadness and regret, he clearly didn't want her to leave. Dean, however, looked completely stoic, there was no feeling at all on his face.

"It was nice to meet you, Sam." she said quietly.

Sam nodded and took a step forwards, wrapping his arms around her in a loose hug. She hugged him back, finding herself smiling against his chest. He pulled back enough to look at her, his hands still holding the tops of her arms. "Are you sure you won't stay?"

Natalie shook her head slowly. He didn't know what, it almost looked like remorse, but something in her eyes told him that she didn't really want to leave. He couldn't work out what it was. But she seemed dead set on it, or as if something else was making her do it. She still didn't seem like the type of person to let some argument, no matter how serious, get in the way of something she wanted to do. And he knew that it wasn't Dean making her go, because he quite obviously wanted her to stay with them, no matter how much he played it down and pretended like it didn't bother him that she was leaving.

"Goodbye, Sam." she replied simply, saying nothing more about it.

Sam sighed, but nodded. He knew there was no changing her mind, not now. He looked from her to Dean and took a step back, moving towards the Impala. He climbed in and pulled the door closed behind himself, leaving the two of them to talk.

"You need a ride somewhere?" Dean asked lightly, leaning against the trunk of his car.

Natalie shook her head. "Nah, I'm gonna go with Bobby." she answered.

He sighed, he couldn't avoid the subject anymore, not when his kid sister was about ten seconds from walking out of his life. "So, this is it?" he pressed. "You're really leaving?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I am."

Dean shook his head at her. "Natalie, what are you doing? You're not fooling me with all this."

Natalie smiled at him, nodding. And that's when he knew, he'd been right all along. "Take care of yourself, Dean." she said simply, taking a step back before she turned and walked away from him.

"Natalie." he called after her, but she didn't turn around. She couldn't. She wasn't going to show him the tears that shone in her eyes, or the hurt that clearly showed itself in her face. She couldn't. It wasn't fair, but it was easier. She had to leave.

Dean sighed as he watched her walk away, again. It wasn't the way it was supposed to be, it wasn't the way that they were supposed to be. There had been a time that nothing could break what they had, and he wanted that back. A part of him thought that they could have that back, she just didn't want to go there, and he hadn't even found out why. He considered going after her, demanding an explanation from her, pleading with her for some answers, but he didn't move. Something, probably his pride, wouldn't let him. He reluctantly moved back towards the Impala and climbed in beside his brother silently.

"I'm sorry, Dean." Sam said quietly. "I know you wanted it to work out."

Dean shrugged. "Doesn't matter." he muttered, shoving the car into gear.

Sam sighed, there was no talking to him when he was like that, it was pointless to try. Maybe he could get some answers from him later, maybe he'd open up and finally tell him everything, but not yet. He reached for the glove compartment for the book in there he was halfway through reading, and frowned at the sight of a brown envelope on top of it. He took it out and turned it around, there was nothing written on the front of it. He opened it and raised his eyebrows. "Uh, Dean."

Dean glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and took the envelope from him, opening it, raising his eyebrows at his brother. "That's about five grand in there." Sam stated simply, looking to Dean for an explanation.

"Friggin' drug smugglers, Sam." he glanced back over his shoulder as bobby's truck pulled out of the end of the driveway, shaking his head. "They're all nuts."

"Can't say she's not generous." Sam stated, turning to Dean and quirking an eyebrow at him.

Dean scoffed, as if to say that he knew better. "She's not being generous, Sam. She doesn't like being in anyone's debt." he muttered. "As far as she's concerned, that makes us even. Means she doesn't have to come back." he finished quietly.

Sam frowned. He could see the look on his brother's face, it was like he had finally realised, after spending the day telling himself that maybe she would stick around, she was gone, for good. She wasn't coming back. She had walked out of his life, again, and there was nothing that he could do to bring her back.

"You think we'll ever see her again?"

Dean shrugged. "Probably not if it's up to her." he sighed, throwing the car in gear as he headed out of the driveway, saying nothing more about it.

* * *

_Okay, first off, thank you all so much for reading and to those of you have reviewed/followed/favourited so far, it really means so much to me! I feel like, because of that, I've gotten much more writing done this past week, even with updating older stories and writing a couple of new oneshots, I think I've had about four updates this week, which is probably a record for me, so thank you for that!_

_Next chapter is going to be a lot more focused on Natalie and her past with Dean, with her getting to know Sam better at the same time and when she will finally admit the real reason she has behind wanting to leave her brothers behind, I know some of you have been telling me that you're really curious about it!_

_Hope you enjoyed and thanks again for reading, have a great rest of your weekend!_


	6. Running And Returning

**Chapter 6: Running And Returning**

Natalie wasn't someone who would walk away from a lot of her problems, usually she would be at the front of the line to fight them and make them right again, but this time it was all so different. When the problem was her older brothers breaking her out of prison and thinking that it was simple enough for her to just hit the road with them and fight monsters things became difficult, she wasn't ready for that. Truth was, she hadn't been all that ready for it when she had started hunting with Dean. Eventually, she had adjusted to the life and gotten used to living it, but it still left her constantly on edge. Everything had been so much simpler after she had left, she wasn't always looking over her shoulder or grabbing a gun when she heard a noise during the night. She had walked away and left it all behind her, but yet it still followed her. She could never really escape it, no matter how hard she tried. But that didn't stop her - not much did.

She came to a stop outside of an old house, looking up at the windows for a sign that there was someone inside. It had been a long time since she had been where she stood, she hadn't set foot in that town since she had been arrested there years before. And she knew how risky it was that she was there again, she did, but, at that point in time, she didn't have much of a choice.

Tentatively, she reached out and knocked three times on the door in front of her, taking a deep breath and a step backwards. She glanced up and down the quiet street, making sure that there was no one around who might recognise her, before she turned back to the wood in front of her. There was the sound of movement on the other side, followed by the lock being clicked and the handle being pulled at.

A red-haired woman, looking to be around the same age as Natalie, came to the door. Her blue eyes went wide at the sight of the girl standing on her doorstep, her jaw dropped in astonishment. "Natalie?" she breathed out, pure shock sounding in her voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hey, Stephanie." Natalie pushed up a small, unconvincing smile. "You gonna invite me in?" she quipped, her voice remaining light despite how obvious it was that she was upset about something.

"Yeah," Stephanie nodded slowly, clearly still in a state of shock, and took a step back from the doorway, holding it open a little wider for her to pass. "Yeah, come on in."

Natalie came to a stop in the hallway behind her as she closed the door and locked it again. She turned and looked her up and down, the concern showing clearly in the small frown that furrowed at her perfectly shaped eyebrows. She and Natalie had been friends for years, since they had been kids. They had grown up together, pretty much in the same crappy, messed up situation. Neither of them had been in a stable home, they didn't have parents who cared about them, they didn't have families that worried about them, they'd just had each other. They had watched each other's backs for years.

"Come here." she stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around Natalie's neck, pulling her into a tight hug.

Natalie hugged her back just as tightly, fighting the strong urge that suddenly built up in her to cry, she didn't even know where it had come from, but it left a lump in her throat and tears swimming unshed in her green eyes.

Stephanie was one of the very few people that Natalie had ever told about Sam and Dean Winchester. The day that she had found out who her father was, it was Stephanie who had been there for her. When John had told her at the age of fourteen what their family really did for a job, she had been the one who had been there to face it with her. She had been there all the way through her teenage years, the two of them together almost every day until the day that Natalie's mom had died.

After that, things had become more complicated. Much more complicated. Natalie had left with Dean and they hadn't seen each other again for almost two years. Stephanie was one of only two people who had known where she had been all that time, who had known what her and her brother had really been doing in the time they had spent together. She knew all about the monsters and the demons, everything. And, in that hug, nothing had changed between them. It was like they had never been apart.

Stephanie pulled back first and looked over her friend carefully, the concern in her expression changing to one of worry. "Natalie, what the hell are you doing here?" she asked again, not satisfied with the fact she hadn't gotten an answer the first time she had asked. "How did you get out of prison?"

Natalie scoffed. "Don't tell me you still don't watch the news." she responded sarcastically, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah, I saw the news." Stephanie retorted. "What's going on, huh?" she pressed. "You can't be here, Nat. When you're on the run from the cops, you don't come home, you'll end up back in prison if someone around here sees you."

She sighed, nodding. "I know, I just," she paused and shook her head slowly. "I need a couple of days to figure out what I'm gonna do. Please."

Stephanie sighed, defeated. Natalie had a talent at giving people a look that almost forced them to give in. "Alright, fine. You can stay here a couple of days, Nat, but then you need to get as far away from this town as you can." she told her, her tone uncharacteristically serious. "There are people here that you're not exactly on great terms with, you know that. And if they don't come for you, the cops sure as hell will. I'm not gonna watch you get yourself thrown back into jail. Or worse."

"Nothing is going to happen to me, alright?" Natalie told her bluntly, making sure that she got the message across to her. "And I have no intention of going back there, okay. Believe me."

Blue eyes regarded green for a moment before Stephanie seemed satisfied that she had gotten her point across, and a small smile crossed her red lips. "Come on," she said lightly. "Let's have a beer. You can fill me in on what's happened to you."

Natalie headed into the next room and heaved a sigh as she looked around slowly. It felt like another lifetime ago that she had been there, when that town had been a place she could call home, long before she had even thought about the supernatural, before the drug dealing and before the danger. Back when everything had seemed so simple. Her eyes fell to a photo still sitting above the fireplace, one of a small group of seven teenagers. They all had the same style; black, leather and tattoos. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she thought back to the group she had once done everything with. In that photo, they all appeared to be inseparable, like nothing could break the bond that was held between them, but she knew different. Out of the seven, one was dead, four were in prison, one was in the next room getting a beer, and the other was Natalie. Things had all been so much more straightforward back then.

"Taking a trip down memory lane?" A voice came from behind her. Natalie turned and raised her eyebrows, giving a small shake of her head. "You're all over the news, you know." she added, realising that it wasn't a conversation that her friend wanted to get into, not that she could blame her for that.

Natalie gave a small chuckle and took one of the beers from her, giving a small smile as she dropped down onto the couch beside her. "What can I say," she smirked. "You know I love the publicity."

Stephanie rolled her eyes, she was clearly cautious about whatever she wanted to say next, taking a small pause to think about it. "I saw that you were back with Dean again." she said slowly, almost hesitantly, meeting her eyes. "Which means, I'm guessing they're right in saying that he was the one who broke you out of there?"

Natalie just nodded, saying nothing for a moment, when something hit her like a punch to the face. "Wait," she stopped her. "They've got Dean on the news, too?" That hadn't been a part of the deal. She didn't really give a second thought to herself being on the run from the cops, it was like second nature to her, but Dean? The last thing that she had wanted to do was to drop him into trouble with her, especially since she knew there was a good chance he didn't even know he was once again in hot water with the law.

"Yeah," Stephanie nodded. "And, the other guy, too. His brother." she narrowed her eyes a little. "Your brother.."

"Yeah," she sighed. "That's Sam."

A part of Natalie felt guilty about him. It wasn't that she didn't want to know him, she did, she always had done. Dean had spent so much time telling her about him when they had been together, she felt, in a way, that she did know him. She didn't want him to think that she didn't care, or that she had left because of him, she hadn't. If it were up to her she would have gone to see him when she had joined up with Dean and John in hunting, the way that Dean had said she should, but their dad wouldn't have it. He pretty much forbade them from going to see him, especially Natalie.

"Why aren't you with them?" she asked, genuinely curious.

Stephanie remembered when Natalie had left the first time, when her mom had died and she had gone off somewhere with her dad and brother. She had been wary about it all at first, concerned for her friend, hell, neither of them knew anything about these people, the ones who claimed to kill demons for a living. But during those first few months, before they slipped out of contact, she had spent some time on the phone with her, and honestly, she hadn't sounded as happy as she did with Dean in a long time. And that was why she couldn't understand it when she had left him. And she had thought that maybe they would have patched it up, if things had been different. But everything changed in that one weekend.

She knew that Natalie still thought of coming home that weekend to be the worse decision of her life.

"I was with them." Natalie answered, looking down at the beer bottle in her hands as she spoke. "We took this hunt, a demon thing, and," she shrugged. "I don't know, I just had to leave. We finished up the job and I bailed, then I came here."

"So, what happened?" she pressed curiously, she had the feeling that she was keeping something from her. "You and Dean aren't still fighting, are you?"

"No," Natalie shook her head. "It's not Dean. But, you know why I can't be around them. I wish things were different, I do, but I can't do that job anymore, Steph. I can't be in that life."

Stephanie gave a light sigh, her eyes searching Natalie's. "Is this about Dylan?" she asked quietly, but she knew that it was a thin rope to be walking.

The look on her face changed completely at the question, her eyes became hard as though she was suddenly cut off from all emotion within herself. "Don't." she said simply. "Steph, please."

"Natalie," she rested a hand on her knee gently. "You know what happened to Dylan wasn't your fault. It wasn't Dean's fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It was that thing that killed him, no one else."

"I know that, I do. It's just," she paused for a moment, she wasn't sure what she wanted to say, she didn't really know how to word it in her own head. "I don't know. That life, it's hard."

"Well, I wouldn't imagine it to be easy." she countered playfully, the smile still holding on her face. "Nat, despite what you say, I know you were good at what you did, and I know how happy that job made you. And, it might be hard, but think of the good you're doing out there. Think of how many people are alive because of what you and Dean did in those two years. The two of you spent all that time together, saving people together, fighting together, I don't for a second believe that means nothing to you anymore."

Natalie sighed heavily. "I'm not saying that, of course I'm not." she said, the frustration was beginning to show in her voice. "But that doesn't change anything. I can't go back to that, Steph. I can't."

"Look, Natalie, I think -" but she stopped dead at the sound of a car door being slammed closed right outside the house, quickly followed by the sound of heavy footsteps climbing the porch steps outside. "Sh."

Both of them tensed up at the sound of a loud banging against the front door. It was almost impatient, as though the person on the other side knew exactly what they wanted. Natalie and Stephanie looked between each other and slowly rose to stand up, both of them staring with their eyes fixed on the front door to her house.

"Did anyone see you come here?" Stephanie asked quietly, taking a couple of steps forwards.

Natalie shook her head. "I don't think so." she shrugged her shoulders, telling her that she honestly didn't know. "Not that I noticed, anyway."

They both stepped out into the hallway as whoever it was knocked again, this time with a little more force. "Should I..?" Natalie nodded at her, indicating for her to answer it. "Alright, go back in there," she said, nodding towards the living room. "If it sounds like a cop then you bail out the back door and you don't look back, okay?"

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Always so dramatic." she said lightly, but did as she was told without an argument.

* * *

It wasn't often that Sam would go behind his brother's back, in fact, if Dean told him to leave something alone then he would usually trust that his older brother knew what was best and he would forget all about it. But this time things were different. There was no way that he could just let it go, there was no turning his back and walking away this time, he had to at least try, even if he had to do it without telling Dean. If this went according to plan then he had a good idea his brother wouldn't care less about a few white lies.

He hadn't even known that Natalie had existed a week ago, and she had already come and gone from his life. It was as though as soon as she had walked into his life, she had turned around and walked straight back out again. From what it sounded like, when she and Dean decided to go their separate ways, they stuck to it. There was evidence to prove that. He wasn't prepared to let that happen again. And if Dean wasn't the one who was going to give him the answers he wanted, that he _deserved_, it was going to be her.

Sam knocked on the door yet again, fast becoming impatient. He had watched Natalie walk inside the house fifteen minutes earlier, he knew that she had to be in there. He was about to head around to the back of the house and try to get inside that way, but then he heard the lock click on the other side. A girl with bright red hair came to the door, she wore black jeans and a dark t-shirt. She, too, was covered in tattoos, the same as Natalie was, she looked like she ran with the same crowd.

"Hey," Sam said lightly, forcing up a smile to cover the clear frustration in him. "I, uh, I was looking for Natalie."

The woman raised her eyebrows at him, as if she didn't have the slightest idea what he could be talking about. "I don't know anyone called Natalie, sorry." she replied bluntly. "I think you've got the wrong place." She made a move to close the door in his face but Sam held out his hand to stop her, forcing it open again.

"Sam?" He looked behind the woman to where Natalie was standing, her eyes wide as she looked at him, her face the picture of pure confusion. "What the hell are you doing here? How did you find me?"

Stephanie seemed to realised what was going on, who he was, and quickly stepped aside to make room for him to enter the house. She closed the door behind him and locked it again, looking to Natalie for some kind of an answer.

"We need to talk, Natalie." Sam said seriously, his voice hard as if to tell her that he wasn't willing to argue. "It's important."

Natalie scoffed, clearly not buying it. "Look, Sam, I appreciate you coming all this way, but if this is about Dean -"

"It's not about Dean, alright?" he cut her off before she could say anything more, he needed to talk to her, and he wasn't prepared to take no for an answer. "Please, just hear me out, that's all I'm asking."

Stephanie shot her a look to which Natalie just sighed, defeated, and nodded. "Alright," she reluctantly agreed. "Fine."

Looking between the two of them slowly, Stephanie smirked a little. "I'll, uh, I'll be in the kitchen if either of you need anything." she said simply, giving Natalie another look that she knew meant hear him out, before she turned and headed off down the hallway. "Nice to meet you, Sam." she called back over her shoulder before disappearing from sight.

Natalie turned back to Sam and raised an eyebrow at him, it was like she wanted to remain stoic, she wanted to pretend that she didn't care about anything, but the look on his face stopped that attempt before she could really start it. There was a look in his eyes that could get nothing but sympathy out of even the coldest person, she wasn't going to ignore it, she wasn't sure that she could. She turned and gestured for him to follow her into the living room.

They each took a seat on the couch beside each other, but still said nothing for a moment. "So," Natalie looked up at him expectantly, realising that he wasn't going to be the one to start the conversation. Her tone was blank, like she couldn't have the faintest idea why he was there. "What do we need to talk about?"

Sam looked down for a second. He'd thought about it so many times on the way there, he had thought up so many things to say to her, he'd thought through every single scenario that they could be faced with and he had the perfect lines ready, but now, he didn't have the first clue what to say to her. She was his sister, his little sister, he shouldn't be in a situation where she was a stranger and he was stuck for words when trying to speak to her, but he was. He didn't want to say anything to mess things up further with her. He didn't want to make things more difficult between her and Dean, and he didn't want to put her off being with them even more than she already had been. But somewhere, he knew that if he didn't take the chance he had to get to know her he would regret it for the rest of his life. The same way that he knew Dean regretted everything that had gone wrong between them.

"I wanna know what happened between you and Dean." he said simply. "I wanna know what it is that has you so pissed at him you can't even give it a shot to spend some time with him."

Natalie narrowed her eyes at him, a small smirk tugging at the side of her lips, everything suddenly made a lot more sense. "He doesn't know that you're here, does he?" she said slowly, a knowing look on her face. "Where is he?"

Sam sighed. "He's taking a hunt." he muttered, like it wasn't important. "Just, please, Natalie, tell me what happened. I mean, I know that Dean can be a jerk sometimes, I know he does stupid things, but I can't ever imagine him doing something to hurt someone he loves, he doesn't have it in him."

"I know that." she sighed. "Believe me, I know how he can be, he'd sacrifice himself for his family without a second thought. I know how selfless he is."

Sam regarded her for a moment. There was a look on her face as she spoke about him, he hadn't noticed it before, it appeared like admiration for him, but she quickly covered it up. "Sounds like you're still pretty fond of him." he commented simply. "Even if you are pissed at him."

Natalie huffed a laugh. She could see it on his face, he was like Dean, he could read people. "You know I love him, he's my brother, of course I do." she said quietly, like it was a hard thing for her to admit, even to herself. "And if you _ever_ tell him I told you that, I _will_ murder you." she added, an empty threat which just made Sam smile. "But I can't be around him, Sam. I can't be around either of you. I don't wanna be in that life anymore."

The statement made Sam frown, as though he had suddenly been slapped in the face with a realisation. "Hold on," he said seriously. "So, you're not really still angry at him, are you?"

He could see it on her face, he had been able to see it back at the motel room, and then on the hunt, she wasn't angry at him, she was _trying_ to be angry with him. He had thought at first that she was still mad and that she was just trying to show it, but then he hadn't been so sure. It was more like she was trying to prove she was mad. She obviously cared about Dean, she had gotten herself stabbed the previous day trying to save his life. But there was definitely something that was keeping her from forgiving him, and he was starting to think that there was something more to it.

There didn't appear to be a lot of things that scared her. He had a good impression that it would have to be something big to make her walk away from something or someone that she obviously cared about, which only strengthened his idea that what had happened between them had been serious.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, fast turning defensive, as though he had touched a nerve with her. "Of course I am."

Sam shook his head. "No, you're not." he frowned. "There's something, but it isn't that you're mad at Dean. What is it, Natalie? What happened between you? I know it must have been a pretty bad fight, but what's so bad that you can't work it out again, hm?"

Natalie looked down at her knees for a moment and breathed out a deep sigh. She said nothing for a moment, as though she was thinking carefully about what she wanted to tell him, if she wanted to tell him anything at all. "You know something, Sam," she began slowly, her eyes refusing to look at him as she spoke. "It wasn't even a fight that started about something important. In fact, I can't even remember what did start it, but after a couple of days things just got out of hand. I mean, we were at each others throats about everything, and then dad went missing, that just started up a serious fight. And we both got so involved with it, we got so caught up in being angry, that was it." she now sounded vacant, like her head was anywhere but there. "I walked."

* * *

_Two years earlier _

Dean slammed his bag down on the table and angrily tossed inside his clothes. The fury showed in his face, in the way that his jaw was tightly clenched as if he was holding back some harsh comment and the way the vein in his neck pulsed as his muscle tightened. He and Natalie had been at each others throats for days now, but it had only been when their conversation became really serious that Dean finally snapped and rose his voice, something which Natalie threw back at him with equal force. Neither would ever back down from a fight, even if it was with each other.

"You're talking about bailing on a job here, Dean." Natalie yelled at him, she wasn't giving up her side of the fight, not a chance. "People are going to die!"

"No, alright? Just, no." he zipped up the bag and turned back to face her. "You are not taking a hunt alone and that's the end of it! Now get your damn stuff and get in the car. I'm not going to tell you again!"

Dean had suddenly pitched the idea that the two of them needed to drop everything and go out in search of their dad. They had been on a case for a week with four deaths so far and they were getting nowhere, so Dean had called him for help. And when their dad hadn't answered his phone, that was it. Everything had to be dropped because he was so certain that something was wrong. Natalie on the other hand hadn't been so concerned.

"I'm telling you here, Nat, Dad might be in trouble." he added, his voice was deadly serious, in a way he barely used with her. "We need to find him, and you're coming with me whether you like it or not. That's the end of it."

But Natalie wasn't shifting. She didn't feel the same urgency that Dean did. And sure, she would go and find their dad with him in a heartbeat once they'd finished the hunt. But there was no way she was going to walk out of that town while people were dying at the rate they were. She couldn't. And she was surprised that Dean could be so insistent on it.

"Dean," she shook her head at him, lowering her voice a little. The screaming hadn't been getting them anywhere but more worked up with the other. "We don't just walk out in the middle of a job, you know that."

"Yeah, well, in these circumstances, we do." he replied darkly.

"Oh, come on. We don't even know that there's anything wrong." she countered. "He probably just doesn't want to answer his damn phone. Hell, it wouldn't exactly be the first time."

"I know there's something wrong here, Natalie!" he retorted, fast becoming defensive. "I can feel it."

"Oh." She scoffed in disbelief. "You can feel it, can you?"

"Yes, actually." he snapped. "He's my dad, alright? I know him."

Natalie just raised her eyebrows at that comment. He knew there was a part of her that was still sensitive about the way she had grown up. There were things from her past that still haunted her. And she had told him herself, if she could have picked she would have chosen to grow up with them and their screwed up life than with her own. The one thing that Dean would never use as a weapon in a fight was the fact she hadn't been there all those years before. Not until then. And, at those words, her face went hard.

He sighed heavily, clearly regretting it the second it passed his lips. "I didn't mean it like that." he added quietly. "But that's not the point."

"Then what is the point, Dean?" Natalie asked him. She no longer sounded angry, she just sounded tired of arguing with him. "I mean, what, you don't trust me or something? You said it yourself, I know what I'm doing out there."

Dean had regretted that comment since he had made it. He knew she could use it in an argument like this, one where she wanted to go off alone. He knew that she was more than capable of handling herself out there. But it only took one, one ghost, one demon, one monster, to get the jump on her and it was all over. There would be no going back and no changing it, he wasn't about to risk losing the sister he had only known for two years of his life.

"And if something happens to you and I was the one who was supposed to be taking care of you, then what?" he snapped.

Natalie sighed. "I know this might come as a shock to you, Dean, but not everything in this world is about you. If I get hurt then that is _my_ problem, okay? Not yours."

Dean just laughed incredulously at that. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean, huh? It's _never_ about me, Natalie. I _always_ make it about you." His voice continued to rise the more he said. "I put your safety in front of everything and you expect me to let you run off and start hunting alone? You don't know what you're doing!"

"I am not saying that!" she yelled back, it was like she just couldn't get through to him. "I'm saying that I'm not leaving this hunt. The second I'm done with it I will come right back to hunting with you, or finding dad, whatever. It's like a week, and it wouldn't be happening at all if you weren't being so damn stubborn!" She took a short breath to compose herself and lowered her tone. "Let me ask you a question, Dean. One minute you say I'm perfectly capable to hold my own, the next you say I don't know what I'm doing out there, so which is it? I mean, I thought the point of me being here was that you taught me how to hunt well enough that I could take care of myself, not so I'd have to depend on you to keep me alive." Dean looked dumbstruck by her words, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times without saying anything. "I do not need babysitting all the time."

"I'm not listening to this." Dean muttered, he clearly didn't know how to respond. "I'm telling you now, Natalie, just get your damn stuff together and get in the car."

Natalie shook her head, she just really didn't understand what the problem was. It wasn't like she was leaving him for good, in fact, technically he was the one leaving her. All she was suggesting was that if he was so desperate to go find their dad then he should go, but she was sticking around to finish the hunt.

"Why are you making this so difficult?" she asked him, genuinely she didn't get it.

Dean huffed. "I'm not making it difficult, Natalie. I'm making it very, very simple. You can either come with me and help me find dad, or you don't. It's up to you."

"Fine." she replied bluntly, not even hesitating.

Dean blinked, hard. "What do you mean 'fine'?" he frowned at her. "You're not serious -"

"Oh I am dead serious. I don't walk out on jobs when people are dying, I think it was you who taught me that." she snapped, she was now more than pissed off at him. "And, honestly, I've had enough of it, all the time. You make me out to be some kind of an idiot, like I don't know what I'm doing. You need to stop treating me like a child."

"You're the one walking out right now, Natalie, and you're saying you're not behaving like a child?" he threw back angrily.

"I am _not_ walking out at all, I'm going to finish this damn case, because that's what I do. That's my job." she shook her head at him and grabbed her own bag. "I'm finishing this case, whether you like it or not. Call me if you find dad, alright?" And with that, she turned and slammed the door behind herself.

Dean wasn't sure what to do. A part of him wanted to go after her but something, most likely his own pride, stopped him. He just stood there and let her walk out on him.

* * *

"I never meant to leave like I did, and I was gonna go back, but then.." she trailed off, shaking her head slowly.

"Natalie," Sam spoke softly, wanting to get through to her,he didn't just want to know, he wanted to understand what had happened between them. "What happened?"

She pulled a hand down her face, if he didn't know better he could have sworn that she was pushing back tears. Her voice was low and thick with emotion, whatever it was, it was obviously something that she didn't like talking about, something that still upset her to think about.

"After I left him, after I finished that hunt, I didn't know what to do." she sighed. "So I came back home. And this thing, this demon, it followed me back here." Sam looked down, like he could already guess what she was about to tell him. "And someone ended up getting killed. It wasn't Dean's fault, I know that, I never blamed him. But, I don't know," she shook her head. "It was so horrible."

* * *

_Two years earlier_

The glass shattered down around Natalie as she fell to the floor with a thud. Before she could even manage to attempt sitting up, her body was dragged up with the same unseen force that had been throwing her around the room for the past ten minutes, leaving her cut up and bruised all over.

With her back pressed to the wall she could do nothing but strain against the hold and try not to let herself look at the man standing at the other side of the room. He gave a small sigh and slowly stepped closer to her. His eyes were cold, in a way that she almost didn't recognise in him. In the many years she had known, _loved_, Dylan, she had never seen him look the way that he did there; cold, malicious, dangerous. Possessed.

"Tell me where your dad is, Natalie." his deep voice warned her. "I'm not going to ask you again."

Natalie groaned and tried again to pull herself from the wall behind her. "I told you," she panted, barely able to breathe through the pain in her torso. She was pretty sure her left ribs were broken. "I don't know where he is!"

Usually, the whole 'tell me where your dad is or I kill you' thing didn't bother her. It wasn't like she had never been in that position before, but this time it was different. This time she knew that Dean wasn't coming to save her. She was on her own and, right there, it didn't look like she was going to be on the winning side.

The demon tutted, shaking his head at her. "I don't think that I believe you." he smirked. "How about this, where are your brothers, hm?" he stepped closer so that their faces were inches apart and pulled out a knife, pressing it to the skin of her neck. "Where are Sam and Dean?"

Natalie sighed heavily, this time it was purely in frustration. "I already told you, I don't know." she pushed the words out through gritted teeth, glaring the demon right in the eyes as she spoke. "I don't talk to either of them anymore."

He reached down a hand to her jeans and grinned as he pulled her phone from her pocket. Natalie watched as he scrolled down to Dean's number and pressed call. "Then I suggest you find out." he warned, holding it up to her ear.

"Oh, screw you." she threw back, pulling back from it.

A feeling of pure relief washed through her at the sound of his voicemail message at the other end, something that only seemed to spur the demon on further. He was pissed and she knew it. After beating her to within an inch of her life, threatening her, threatening pretty much everyone she had ever spoken to, and then that, she knew that it was running out of ideas.

"I'm starting to lose my patience with you, Natalie." he said darkly, turning his back to her and slowly paced to the other side of the room.

Natalie opened her mouth to say something but stopped at the sound of the front door to the house being kicked down. They looked between each other for a moment, as if they were both holding their breath to see which one of them had gotten the backup they needed. She breathed out a sigh of complete relief at the sight of her eldest brother running through the doorway.

He took one look at her, held against the wall, completely covered in blood, and saw red. He lunged at the demon and punched it hard in the face, enough to knock it back into a table. He then took the opportunity to throw a flask of holy water at it, causing it to scream out in pain as the white steam vaporised from its skin.

Momentarily distracted by the pain, the hold on Natalie broke and she fell to the ground. "Natalie?!" Dean was immediately by her side and pulling her to stand beside him, just as the demon regained his composure.

Dean just smirked. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas," the demon groaned in discomfort at Dean's words. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii -"

"Shut up!" The demon yelled, so loud and so demanding that it stopped Dean in pure shock for a moment, for a second he could have sworn the house shook. He opened his mouth to continue the exorcism, still supporting Natalie, who could barely stand let alone speak, but the demon continued loudly. "Now, I told you that I wasn't leaving here until I was told what I wanted to know, and I meant it. I am not leaving this room until someone tells me where I can find, and kill, John Winchester."

Dean clenched his fists, if he hadn't been murderous before he sure was now. "Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica -"

But before he could finish, the demon pulled a knife, seemingly out of nowhere, and plunged it into his own stomach. "There," a satisfied smirk appeared on his face. "Now you can't get rid of me without killing my meatsuit."

Dean stopped dead, it was like a huge decision had suddenly been wedged on his shoulders. If he finished that exorcism, the kid in front of him was going to drop down dead. He only looked to be around Natalie's age, he wasn't much older. And it was only then, at that thought, that Dean recognised the face before him. He had seen the same one two years ago when Natalie had left that same town with him. He had been there to say goodbye to her. It was Dylan.

For a moment he couldn't say anything at all, he seemed to be in as much shock as Natalie was, but then he felt her shift a little from his hold. She stepped forwards, ignoring the pain, and faced him straight on.

"I'm sorry." she whispered, but Dean knew that she wasn't talking to the demon. "Ergo, draco maledicte. Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire," Her voice shook as she finished it, but no tears showed themselves. "Te rogamus, audi nos."

A pained scream left him as the thick black smoke poured out from his mouth and disappeared through the floor around him. He dropped down to his knees and then fell back to lie on the floor. Natalie was almost immediately on her own knees beside him, his face held between her hands.

"Dylan? Hey, can you hear me?!" His eyes slowly opened to look at her, but she could tell even that was a struggle. "I'm sorry," she whispered, moving to press one hand down on the bleeding wound in his stomach, as if she could will it to stop bleeding herself. She wasn't stupid, she knew by the amount of blood that she felt there, he was done. That was the same reason Dean was standing behind her quietly instead of calling an ambulance. There was no time. In a couple of minutes he was going to be dead. This time there was no saving him.

Dylan opened his mouth and tried to speak but, at first, nothing came out. He frowned and tried to push back the pain, focusing everything on the girl before him. "Get yourself away from this life, Natalie." he choked out, his voice cracking at the words. "Please, take care of yourself."

She shook her head slowly, she couldn't. "Dylan -"

One of his hands slowly moved to rest over hers. "You know I would've loved you forever." he whispered. His eyes drooped closed as his strength left him, he couldn't hang on.

"Dylan," Natalie practically begged him. "Please, don't. Please."

But that was it, just like that, in a split second he was gone. His breath stopped and his eyes fell closed for the final time. And at that, everything that Natalie had held together in that moment completely shattered. The tears fell from her eyes as Dean slowly moved to crouch behind her. He pulled her back and turned her around to face him, holding her against him as she cried. All physical pain and broken bones were forgotten, completely taken over by the unbearable thought that the only person she had ever truly been in love with was gone. All she could do in that moment was cling to Dean and cry, trying to focus on his soft voice as he tried to tell her that it would be okay, that he had her, that he wouldn't leave her. But he couldn't make what had happened right. No one could.

Neither of them knew it there, but something changed in Natalie that day. And it was something that never changed back.

* * *

"Natalie," Sam shook his head slowly. His eyes were soft and understanding with her, as though he could try to take the pain away from her. "I'm so sorry." he said quietly, his voice was more genuine than almost anyone she had ever told about him.

"That's when I knew, I had to get out. I just had to leave." she blinked back the tears that were shining in her eyes and cleared her throat. "But Dean didn't see it like that. He didn't think walking away from the life would solve anything, and we got into another fight, but this one was worse. It stuck with me. You know, he was the first person I ever let myself trust completely with my life, and, I don't know, in that day, I just felt like he'd turned his back on me."

Sam frowned a little. "That doesn't sound much like Dean."

She nodded in agreement. "It wasn't." she replied simply. "But, honestly, he scared me like that, I mean, I'd never seen him get so angry with me. And, I don't know what happened, but we both let things get out of hand. He was pissed, I was upset, we said things we didn't mean, it was both our fault."

* * *

_Two years earlier_

Dean closed the motel door behind himself and raised his eyebrows at the sight before him. Natalie was shoving clothes into her open duffel bag on the bed. He had barely seen her move the past few days, she had seemed too locked away in her own thoughts to do or say much of anything. Honestly, he had been getting worried about her. Every time he had suggested that they do something she had refused, determined to stay in town to go to Dylan's funeral, which they had done the previous day. Now, she was up and packing her stuff like her life depended on it. He noticed how she refused to even look at him as he entered, something was definitely wrong.

"Natalie?" Dean frowned a little and took a step into the room, a little wary. "What are you doing?"

She folded up a pair of jeans and placed them into the bag, her back to him. "I'm done, alright?" she muttered. "I can't do this anymore, Dean. I can't live this life anymore."

Her words stopped Dean where he was, he wasn't sure how to react to that. "You're done?" he repeated, a little confused.

"Yeah," she nodded and turned to face him. "I quit."

Natalie no longer looked upset. She didn't look like she'd had a part of her world ripped out from beneath her anymore. She didn't look as though she was lost and confused. Her face was hard, she appeared completely focused and set on what she was doing.

"You can't quit." he argued.

She scoffed and turned to shove a jacket into the bag. "Watch me."

Dean sighed and shook his head. "Natalie, look, I get that you're upset, and I get -"

Natalie snapped at his comment, not letting him say more. All he had been saying the past week was that he understood, it was all everyone in that town had been telling her. But they didn't. None of them did. "Don't pretend like you get how it feels to lose someone you were in love with." she threw back at him.

"Okay, I'm gonna ignore that one." he said calmly. He knew how frustrated she was, and she was right, he didn't really understand. He'd never lost someone in the way that she had lost him, but that didn't mean that he didn't care. "But all I'm gonna say to you is maybe instead of sitting around in this motel room whining about it you should get up and do something about it."

He was being harsh, he knew that, and he knew that it would get a reaction out of her. But maybe somewhere deep down that was what he wanted. He had spent a week watching her mope around being miserable, and she had every right to do that, she did, but it wasn't her. He was starting to miss the sister who always had a smile on her face, the one who always had some sarcastic one liner to give or a playful comment to make. It was like she had no life left in her, and he couldn't watch it anymore.

But she didn't get mad, she simply closed the zip on her duffel bag and turned to face him. "Something like what?" she asked. "You tell me, Dean, what, exactly, am I supposed to do?"

Dean shook his head, becoming just as worked up as he knew she was inside. "I don't know, we'll take a hunt or something." he suggested, anything to get her out of that room. "You can't just quit. You can't leave this life."

"Oh, and why the hell not?" she snapped. "Huh?" Being told what to do always got a rise out of her. She took a step closer to him and lowered her voice. "This is my life, Dean. I can do whatever the fuck I want to."

Dean also stepped forwards, matching her glare. "You are not leaving this life, alright?" he told her bluntly. "I won't let you."

Natalie just scoffed. "I'm sorry, what business is it of yours whether or not I hunt? Last time I checked, you weren't in charge of me."

"You're my damn sister, of course it's my business!" he was starting to get mad now. He couldn't let her walk out. She was his responsibility, no one elses, just his. And he couldn't let her leave. "Why would you want to leave anyway?"

That was the part that confused him. She had loved the job from the moment he had started to train her. He remembered the times that they'd had to stop what ever they were doing, whether it was fight training or shooting or running, because they were laughing too much. Or the times that they had gone out to celebrate after finishing up a job, the way that they would laugh and joke together. There was something about her when she hunted, she had a spark in her that wasn't there the rest of the time. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but there was an adrenaline in her when she hunted that he couldn't explain, something he had never seen in another person before.

"He died because I'm in this life, Dean." she said quietly. It was the first time she had really spoken about him since it had happened. "He died because of what I do."

"Oh, for gods sake, you can't blame the life, Natalie!" he barked. "This all happened because you were being a bitch and you bailed, _you_ got him killed, not the job. His blood is on _your_ hands, no one elses."

Dean really was angry, but it wasn't at her. And he hadn't known where that comment came from, but he had regretted it the second it had passed his lips, and he knew it wasn't one that he would be able to take back. He was angry that she wanted to leave, that she was prepared to give up something that had made her so happy before. He was still angry about the fight they'd had the previous week. But that was something else, he had never wanted to say something to hurt her, he didn't know why he had. It shocked him just as much as it clearly shocked her.

She blinked, more than taken aback by his tone. "Excuse me?" Dean opened and closed his mouth, he couldn't even speak. "Oh, even for you, Dean, that's cold."

"Natalie -" he went to say something, maybe it was an apology, he didn't know, but she stopped him.

Natalie had found her anger again, she was mad at the life, at the demon who had killed Dylan, at herself, and she was going to throw it all at him. "You know what, Dean, you think that you're so much better than me."

But now Dean was pissed, too. He was mad at himself, he was mad at the life and what it had done to his sister, and she was going to suffer for it. "Yeah," he agreed. "You see, while you were running around breaking the law with your bratty little friends, I was here, doing my job. I was in this life long before you were even born!"

She squared up to him, matching his glare. "Well, if I'm that fucking useless, why the hell am I even here?"

Dean shook his head. "You know that, Natalie, I don't even know anymore. Why are you here, because you clearly don't want to be!"

She stepped back from him at that and nodded slowly. "You know what," her voice was much smaller than it had been. "That is a really good question, Dean." With that, she turned and picked up her bag from the bed and threw it over her left shoulder.

"So you're really gonna walk out, huh?" he challenged her. He didn't even know where it was all coming from anymore, he wanted to tell her to stay, that they could work it out, but it was like he couldn't control what was coming out of his mouth anymore. "Just like that?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I am."

"You can't do that." he shook his head at her, his eyes met hers for a long moment, as if he could make her see what he wanted to say. "You can't do that to me."

Natalie raised her eyebrows at that comment. "Excuse me?" she frowned. "For christ's sake, Dean, is that all you care about here?" she scoffed, nodding to herself when he said nothing, as if that was a sufficient answer. "Of course it is. I mean, let's face it, the only reason that you want me here is because you are absolutely _terrified_ of being alone."

"And what the hell does that mean?" he stepped forwards, his voice now hard in a way he had never spoken to her before.

"This was never about us hunting together, Dean." she said quietly, her voice was soft again, like her anger had gone and she was left with just the tiredness and upset. "This was you doing what your dad told you to do, as always, and then it just became about you not wanting to be in it alone. Sam was gone, dad was always leaving you to take hunts by yourself, and you couldn't hack it."

"Where the hell is all this coming from?" he asked her, genuinely confused.

Dean was now more than lost. He'd told her before that, yeah, he was glad that he had her with him because he didn't want to be on his own all the time, but that didn't mean she was there because he had no one else. She had always been there because she was family, he cared about her, and he had thought she had known that.

"It's nothing new, Dean." she sighed, sounding remorseful to even have the conversation. "Even now, from the minute I said I was leaving, you changed. You snapped and yelled at me, you just blamed me for Dylan's death for gods sake," Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke. "You can't even tell you're doing it, but from the second you knew that something clicked in your head and you tried to push me away. You do it because you can't handle it if someone leaves you, so you do the pushing away first."

That stopped every thought in his head. She knew him so well, and he knew that she did, she could read him inside out, what if she was right? Could she be? He wanted to think that she wasn't. But then, he didn't know why he had suddenly snapped at her when she had told him she was leaving him, he didn't want to be alone, he hated the thought of hunting alone. Maybe she really was onto something. And she was right, he didn't want her to walk out on him, he didn't want to be left, and he couldn't stop what came out next, he continued to push, when all he wanted to do was pull.

"Okay then," he replied quietly. "I'll show you right now how terrified I am of being alone." He nodded towards the door. "Go ahead, leave. I won't fight you." Natalie just stared at him. "Just go, Natalie." he added sharply.

"You know what, fine." She nodded. "But I swear to god, once I'm out of that door, it's the last time you're gonna see me."

She didn't know why she had said that to him. Yes, she wanted to leave, she didn't want to be in the life anymore, but she didn't want to leave it like that. She didn't want them to be on bad terms. She didn't want it to be Dean telling her to go and her telling him they'd never see each other again. But that was how it had turned out. There was no going back from this fight, and they both knew that. If it was going to be like that, Dean wanted to feel like he had been the one to finish it, but Natalie wanted to feel as though she had been the one to walk away.

"Fine." Dean glared down at her, his stance never once broke. "Just try not to get anyone else killed."

And that was it, that comment silenced any doubt in his mind that he really was never going to see his sister again.

Natalie looked hurt, but so did Dean. She nodded and readjusted the bag on her shoulder. "Goodbye, Dean."

And with that, she walked past him and out of the motel room. And they honestly thought it would be the last time they ever saw each other.

* * *

"After that, we just went our separate ways, you know?" she shrugged and looked up to face Sam again. "We just didn't get around to fixing things again. I got on with my own thing, I came home, I think Dean went back to looking for dad, probably took a hunt or something, and I guess at some point he came to get you." she sighed. "If I could go back and change it, I would. I'd go back there in a heartbeat and never take a step out of that motel, I'd take it all back, but I can't."

"That's why you don't wanna be in this life." he concluded, nodding to himself. "That's why you're running away, because you're scared. What happened to Dylan, you're scared of something like that happening again."

"I don't know, Sam." she admitted quietly. "I don't know what I'm running from anymore. But I know that I can't be with you and Dean. Hell, I've got the Feds on my ass, you don't need to deal with that. I'm not dragging you both down with my crap, it's not fair on either of you."

Sam actually let out a laugh at that one. "Natalie, Dean and I have so much crap on our plates already, a little bit more doesn't really make much of a difference to us, especially if it's worth having there. You know, I think it'd be good for us all to stick together, especially with Dean's -" but he stopped himself short before he could say anything more.

Her face went serious, as though she could already tell that something was wrong. "Dean's what?" she pressed curiously, frowning a little.

"Nothing." Sam muttered, almost a little too quickly. "It doesn't matter." There was a look on her face that promised it wasn't over, but she said nothing. "Listen to me, Natalie. You're my sister, and I know that I don't know you that well, I barely know you at all, but I want to. And I understand that you've been through a lot in this life, believe me, I understand how losing someone you love like that can make the job seem scary, but I'd like to give it a shot with you, and I know that Dean wants to try again. And, somewhere deep down, I think that you do, too."

She sighed deeply, avoiding looking at him. "Sam," she went to argue with him but found she didn't know what to say. There wasn't a lot she could say to that, because she knew that he was right. She would have been more than willing to give Dean another shot under any other circumstance, and she would love to get to know Sam.

"Come on," he coaxed. "Just, how about this, come back with me and at least try to talk to Dean again? Please."

Natalie's eyes finally met his, holding his gaze for a moment. For a second she said nothing, frowning as she thought about it, but eventually she nodded. "Sure."

* * *

_Okay, thank you so much to everyone for reading and reviewing and everything, it all means so much to me, you're honestly amazing for taking the time to read my stuff! _

_And there we go, you finally know everything that went down between Dean and Natalie before they split, told you I wouldn't keep you in the dark forever! But, there is definitely more to come from Natalie's past which will be revealed in the later chapters. _

_Because I know some of you like to get a better picture of the OC's, as someone asked me to put up some gifs/pictures of Natalie on my profile, there are also a couple of what I picture Dylan to look like as I write, so maybe check that out if you're interested. _

_And, for those of you who like a heads up to what's coming up in the next chapter; there's going to be a major Dean/Natalie heart to heart, because we all love some brother/sister bonding, right? And also some more Sam/Natalie stuff too! Also, I will be getting back on track with season three, as well, obviously with a few cheeky surprises thrown in, too ;) _

_So, thank you again for the immense support that I get from you guys, and look out for the next chapter! Hope you enjoyed! :-)_


	7. People Like Us Never Really Change

**Chapter 7: People Like Us Never Really Change**

_Iowa City, Iowa - Motel Room. _

_'Hey, this is Sam, leave me a message.' _Dean released a long, tired groan as he once again heard the message of Sam's voicemail at the other end of the phone. He was fast becoming frustrated and, although he would never admit it to another person, he was getting worried about his brother. He had suddenly taken off without so much as a text to say where he was going. That had been nearly two days ago. Dean had considered maybe he was still pissed at him for not telling him about Natalie, but Sam had said that he was over it. He didn't know. He just wanted to know that he was okay. And the fact that Sam was constantly refusing to answer the phone wasn't reassuring him at all.

He turned sharply at the sound of a key being pushed into the other side of the door, only expecting it to be Sam. He opened his mouth, ready to give his kid brother an earful for wandering off the way he had done, but closed it again at the sight of his sister.

"Natalie?" he looked her up and down slowly, a confused frown on his face. "You're back?" It came out as more of a question than a statement. Everything else had gone completely from his head at the sight of her. He didn't know what to say.

A few days ago she couldn't get away from them fast enough, and, honestly, he didn't expect that he would see her again before his deal came due. But there she was, standing in front of him, eyebrows raised and half a smirk on her face.

"Not much gets by you, huh?" she said lightly. She stepped further into the room and forced herself to give him a small smile. "But we need to talk." she added seriously. "Before this can work, we need to talk."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Before this can work?" he repeated, unsure that he had even heard her right. It wasn't like her at all to do something like that, something big must have happened for her to change her mind so fast. He nodded slowly, because he wasn't passing it up. He completely agreed with her on that one. "Yeah," he said simply. "How about we go for a beer?" He knew there was a bar within three minutes of the motel, and she was less likely to punch him if they were in a public place.

Natalie shrugged. "Sure," she nodded, like it couldn't bother her less. "Whatever."

Dean took that as a yes and grabbed his jacket from the back of one of the chairs at the table before he picked up his car keys from the table. "Let's go."

The two of them headed into the bar and looked between each other, as if they were simultaneously saying the same thing to the other without needing to open their mouths. In the months they had spent together they had fallen into a routine, and it still stuck. Dean headed towards the bar and nodded over at one of the waitresses for a couple of beers, while Natalie headed over towards one of the tables near the back of the room.

She pulled off her jacket and dropped down into one of the seats heavily, resting her forehead against her palms for a minute as she let out a deep breath. Her eyes fell to where Dean stood at the bar, a twang of guilt feeling in her chest. It wasn't that she wanted to be away from him, it was the life, and she knew that if she told him that he wouldn't take it. He never let her back down from anything, he always made she that she fought everything straight on, and that he was right beside her to help.

Dean crossed the room again and dropped himself down into the chair opposite his sister's before he turned his attention back to her face. "So," he began lightly, placing one of the beers down in front of her. "I take it, since you're here, Sam came to see you?" he asked, a knowing look on his face. "I wondered where he'd gotten to." he added, more to himself than to her.

She nodded. "Yeah, he knows all of it, Dean." she told him blankly, her voice low. "I told him everything."

Dean blinked, a little taken aback. "Wow. That's not like you." he commented. He knew Natalie would rather shoot herself in the leg than tell someone, even if it was her own brother, the most personal details of her life. "How come?"

Natalie shrugged. "I don't know," she shook her head and took a drink of the beer, her eyes fixed on the table. "I guess because he was starting to think that you'd done something awful to make me so mad at you. That's not fair on you."

Dean sighed. "Look, Nat, whatever you might think, I'm not proud of the things I said to you that night, hell, that whole week I was a dick." he paused for a second and took a small breath. "You lost someone close to you and I should have been there for you, I shouldn't have treated you the way that I did. Some of the things I said to you were just.." he trailed off, shaking his head at himself. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, well, I meant what I said, it wasn't yours either." she said quietly.

"Hm." Dean didn't respond to that for a minute, but since they were already well on their way to being in a chick flick moment, he decided he might as well get it all out. "I know I can't take it back, but if I could, I'd take back that entire week. Think how much different things would've been. You wouldn't have ended up in prison, Sammy would've known you two years ago. Hell, things might have gone differently with Dad for all we know -"

"Hey." she stopped him before he could say anything more. "Come on, don't start thinking things like that. It's done, we can't change it. It's all in the past, we can't do anything about it so we might as well forget it."

"Still," he sighed. "I never really said that I was sorry about that night, about everything I said to you. I didn't mean it, Natalie, you know that, right?"

Natalie shook her head. "I'm not angry, Dean. I'm not." she admitted quietly, finally looking up at him. "That's not what this is about." Dean frowned at her, like he was anxious of what she was about to tell him. "Truth is," she paused, looking as though she was struggling to find the words. "I'm scared."

Dean blinked, genuinely surprised. That was the last thing he had ever expected to hear come out of her mouth. She had barely ever shown any fear to him before. Every single hunt, no matter what it was, she showed no sign of being afraid, she was never even nervous, she just got on with it. The hunt they had taken together just a couple of days earlier, she had been perfectly calm and together with it. She had dealt with it in the way that she had been trained to do, never letting her front down.

"You're what?" he pressed, not sure what she could mean she was scared of.

She pulled a hand down her face and took a short breath. "That, what happened then, with Dylan, it scared the hell out of me, Dean." Her voice was soft and timid, in a way that he knew meant she didn't want to tell him, but she didn't have a choice anymore. She couldn't keep lying to him.

And then something hit Dean. "I knew it." he said, straightening himself up in his chair to look at her properly. "I could tell by your damn face that you weren't still pissed at me." he said seriously, sounding more annoyed that he had allowed himself to become convinced that she was still angry. "I spent all this week trying to work out why you were holding such a grudge at me, and you weren't. You were running, this whole time."

Natalie sighed, shaking her head, she clearly wasn't proud of herself. "Look, Dean, I'm sorry." she whispered, taking a breath to compose herself. "I know I should've told you the truth, but I didn't want you to think that I was being pathetic. And I know if I would've told you that I was scared you would have made me stay with you, that's what you're like, you talk people around. But hunting scares me. I mean, I'm scared that someone's gonna get hurt, that someone else is gonna die." she finally looked up at him again, her eyes swimming with emotion. "I'm scared that I'm gonna get someone killed."

"Natalie," Dean closed his eyes for a second, he hated when she was hurt like that, it wasn't like her. "Sis, I keep telling you, it's okay if you're scared sometimes. I've been telling you that since the day I met you. Being a hunter doesn't mean that you have to be invincible, you don't have to shoulder everything on your own and never be afraid, that's what I'm here for." He offered her a reassuring smile and nodded. "You're good at this job, Nat. Don't let one bad experience change that."

"Dean," she sighed heavily, she knew what he was thinking and it wouldn't work. "You need to get it out of your head that we can just go right back to the way we were before. We're not those people anymore. You can't keep kidding yourself that everything's just gonna be the same as it used to be."

"Why can't we be?" Dean countered, a small frown on his face. "People like us never really change, Natalie. You know that. You saw us back on that hunt, fighting those demons, you know we're still a team." A small smirk tugged at the edge of his lips. "I know you do."

Her eyes found his, holding his gaze for a moment. She could see that he trusted her, he had faith in her, he wanted her to stay. It was as though she suddenly remembered everything from the past, she allowed the anger she was trying her best to hold onto leave her. Truth was, she had forgiven her brother a long, long time ago. It was the hunting life that she was angry at, and Dean was always the one she had tried to pin her frustration on, maybe as an excuse not to ever go back to it, she didn't know. But she knew that he regretted not heading to find her sooner, she regretted not calling him for help sooner, they were both in the same boat. They were finally on the same page again, and she didn't want to walk away from him again. She was done running.

"So?" Dean pressed when she said nothing, he took a drink of his beer and raised his eyebrows expectantly. "You sticking around then, or what?"

Natalie considered him for a moment, there wasn't anything stopping her anymore. Except one thing. What Sam had said, or almost said, earlier had stuck with her. And the more she had thought about it, the more things she had picked up on about the two of them. Dean was way more reckless than he had ever been before, he was living his life like he was ready to die, like he was _willing_ to die. Sam was looking at him as though he was losing him, as though he expected the earth to just open up and swallow him away. There was something between them that they didn't want her to know. They were keeping something a secret, between the hushed conversations they had and the way that they would suddenly stop talking when they would notice her coming, pretending like everything was fine, she knew something was wrong. She wasn't stupid, she knew it had to be something big.

"That depends," she said simply, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms over her chest. Dean quirked an eyebrow at her, saying nothing. "I wanna know what's going on between you and Sam."

That took Dean by surprise, he clearly hadn't been expecting her to say anything like that. He thought for a second what she could mean, only able to arrive at one conclusion in his mind, but no, that was him being paranoid, wasn't it? There was no way that she could've worked that out already, they hadn't even been together more than a few days, she barely even knew Sam, how could she have already noticed that there was something off about them? Unless she really could read him more than he thought she could.

He cleared his throat, pushing back the plaguing thoughts, and frowned, playing it dumb. "Excuse me?" he asked, acting as though he didn't have the faintest idea what she could be getting at.

Natalie scoffed, as if to tell him that he wasn't fooling her for a second. "I wanna know what's going on." she said again. "I wanna know what this big secret is between the two of you. The one you're trying so hard to make sure I don't find out about."

Dean shook his head at her. "Natalie -"

But she suddenly sat forwards again, taking him a little by surprise. "Don't treat me like a fucking idiot, Dean." she snapped. "I know you, and I know when you're lying. I know when you're hiding something, so tell me, because I'm not sticking around here otherwise."

Dean frowned. She had always put up with a lot, she was fairly easy-going about most things, but the one thing that she would not take from anyone was being lied to. "What?"

Natalie just looked at him, her expression never changing. "You heard me." she said flatly. "You don't trust me, fine. But I am not sticking around just so you can lie to my face."

Dean sighed, he couldn't tell her. Or could he? He didn't want her to know, he didn't want to see her looking at him the same way that Bobby and Sam were always looking at him. Maybe she was different, maybe she would understand why he had done it, maybe she would be okay about it and not make a fuss. But, then again, maybe she would leave. Maybe she wouldn't want to have to deal with the drama, maybe she wouldn't want to get close to him again because she knew what would happen in less than a year. He didn't know.

"Natalie," he tried to think up something to answer with, but he didn't know what to say. "It's not like that."

She shook her head at him, he could tell that she was becoming frustrated, she was worried about him. "Just tell me," she pressed. "What the hell can be so bad that you can't even tell your own sister? I mean, there was a time that I'm pretty sure you would have told me anything. Hell, you did. You told me everything about your life, even the stuff that you wouldn't tell dad and Sam. Why is this different?"

Dean nodded. She was right. It wasn't different. She was still the same girl who he had once been closer to than anyone else. She was still the girl that knew pretty much every single detail of his life. There wasn't anything to take away what she already knew.

"Look, there's no easy way to say this, but," he took a small breath and gave a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm going to hell, Natalie."

"Yeah," she scoffed. "Aren't we all."

Dean smiled a little. "No, seriously." Her eyes met his, a small frown furrowed at her brows. "You, uh, you remember when I told you about making deals with demons? Selling your soul at the crossroads, hellhounds dragging you to the pit when your time's up, the whole nine?"

Her face went pale at his words, she looked like she wanted to be sick. "You didn't." she shook her head slowly. "Dean, please tell me you haven't sold your soul."

He nodded. "A couple of weeks ago." he told her quietly. "I just, I didn't have a choice, kid."

Natalie opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, because what the hell was she supposed to say to that? She ran a hand through her hair, resting her forehead against the back of her hands as she stared down at the table in front of her. She thought through what he was saying for a moment until something hit her. "A couple of weeks ago?" she repeated, looking up at him again. "So, you've got nearly ten years left, right?" Dean wet his lips, saying nothing. "Right?" she pushed, almost pleading with him to say yes.

"I only got a year." he replied solemnly. "I've got less than a year left before I go to hell, Natalie."

"Jesus Christ, Dean." she shook her head in disbelief and pulled a hand down her face. That couldn't be real. In a year he would be gone, dead and in hell. It seemed surreal, he had only just come back into her life, and soon he was leaving again. She felt like she could cry, just sit there and cry to him, but what was the point in that? It never solved anything.

"Natalie." Dean pushed, becoming a little wary about how little she was saying to him. It freaked him out when she looked as distant as she did right there, she would barely even look at him.

"What do you want me to say, Dean?" she suddenly asked him, sitting up a little straighter and dropping her hands down to rest on the table. "I mean, what do you really think I can say to you right now? What are you expecting?" He blinked, now lost himself as to what to say. "I mean, do you expect me to be okay about it? You want me to cry? What? You're telling me that you've sold your soul, yeah? You've pretty much killed yourself. You tell me, how the hell am I supposed to react to something like that?"

"Natalie -" he tried, but she wasn't letting up.

"Is that why you came to find me?" she asked him seriously. "Because you'd sold your soul? Because you knew you had a year to live?"

Dean nodded slowly. "I couldn't go to hell with us like that." he admitted quietly. "That wasn't who we were, it wasn't what we were supposed to be. You're my sister, Nat. I need you."

And that was when she knew everything was serious with him. He never admitted to needing people, he would never come out and say that unless he really was scared that he was going to lose someone. And she could see in his face right there, he thought she was going to walk away again. He thought that telling her that was once again driving her away.

"Nat," he struggled for something to say for a moment. "Please don't be angry."

Natalie sighed, she wasn't angry at him, of course she wasn't. She was hurt. The idea that he wasn't going to be around forever, it physically pained her. She didn't want him to leave. "I hope it was worth it." she commented bluntly.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, it was." he answered confidently, not even hesitating.

Natalie nodded, she didn't even have to ask what he had dealt for, she could guess. Something had happened to Sam and Dean had given up his life in a heartbeat to save him without thinking about it. That was the only thing he cared enough about to die for so quickly. She knew that. She didn't want to talk about it with him, not yet, she didn't want to get upset, she didn't want him to see her like that. She didn't think that either of them could stand the heart to heart talk for much longer.

But she wasn't going anywhere, Dean had plenty of time to tell her everything that she needed to know. He had his sister back, and that was all that really mattered to him.

* * *

_One hour later_

Sam looked up from his laptop as the door to the motel room swung open. He watched as Dean headed inside first, almost holding his breath to see if there was someone behind him. For a second, when he didn't see her, he thought that she had once again bailed. That she was gone and had given up on both of them, that he wouldn't see her again. But then she appeared behind him, also heading into the room. She gave him a small smile as she closed the door behind herself and pulled off her jacket.

Dean shot Sam a look, as if to tell him that he would deal with him later, but Sam didn't miss the grateful look in his eyes. He knew that Dean had wanted her back, but he had just been too stubborn to go and find her again himself, so he had done it without him. And now she was back, everything was fixed.

"I'm gonna take a shower." Dean said bluntly, not saying anything else before he headed to the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind himself, leaving the two of them alone.

Sam noticed the smile fade from Natalie's face as soon as Dean had turned away from her. There was something that shone in her eyes that already looked like loss. It was a look that he recognised all too well, because he saw it in his own eyes every time he looked into the mirror.

"He told you, huh?" Sam said quietly, the sound of his voice appeared to make her jump a little, as though she had been so far in her own thoughts she hadn't even remembered there was someone else in the room with her.

Her eyes tore away from the bathroom door as she looked to him. "Yeah," she nodded, moving to sit down in the seat opposite his. "He told me." she said softly. She sounded vacant, like her mind was still a million miles away from the conversation.

"He's not going to hell, Natalie." Sam told her firmly. He sounded more confident about it that he had done in a couple of days, and he wasn't sure if that was for her benefit or his own. "I won't let him die. Trust me on that."

"So, that's what all this research is?" she asked him, realising that every time she had seen him since she had met him he'd had a book in his hand, or he had been on his laptop, or on the phone. He was always doing something. "And there was me thinking that you were just a nerd." she added lightly.

Sam sighed, a small smile forming on his face. "Yeah," his eyes fell to the stack of books that were piled up on the edge of the table, the ones he had yet to read. "Don't really know where to look, so I guess I've just gotta look everywhere."

Natalie nodded slowly, her eyes studying him for a moment. He watched as she pushed herself up and crossed the room to where she had dumped her bag down, raising his eyebrows as she pulled out a pair of black glasses and put them on. She moved to sit back down and grabbed the book at the top of the pile before she leaned back in her chair and rested her boots up on the table casually. He continued to look at her, as if he was asking her what she was doing.

"What?" she asked defensively. "You'll have him saved twice as fast if there's two of us at it." she commented simply, but Sam didn't stop staring at her. There was something like disbelief in his eyes, a look that she wasn't too sure of. "What?" she asked again.

"Nothing, it's just," he paused, allowing the small smile tugging at the corner of his lips to break out. "I'm glad you're here, Natalie."

Natalie smiled at him. "Yeah," she nodded. "Me, too." Their gaze held for a moment before they both looked down to the books in front of them. Suddenly, it was as though everything was right how it was supposed to be. Everything was right again.

* * *

_Aw, good to have Sam and Natalie working together to try and break Dean's deal, and it's good that Dean finally told her about it! But, Winchesters aren't ones to take bad news well, we all know that. So, is that really the end of Natalie's reaction to finding out her brother is well on his way to hell?_

_And, speaking of Natalie and Sam, a heads up for the next chapter; you can look forward to there being a pretty deep and personal heart to heart between the two of them, one that will bring them closer together and also reveal more about her past._

_I know that this chapter was shorter than usual but I've been super busy the past couple of weeks and haven't really had the time to do much writing. So, rather than keep you waiting for a longer chapter, I decided to post a shorter one because I didn't want to leave it without an update!_

_And for those asking I'll also be updating my new story, Secret Diary Of A Winchester, either later on today or tomorrow. Oh, and to those of you who are fans of sister fics, the editor of this story, **loveintheimpala, **has just posted up a new one on her account called I Know You're In There, which is really good, so check it out if you're interested. _

_As usual, thank you so much for reading and reviewing, for favouriting and following, it means the world to me! Have a great week guys, see you next chapter! :-)_


	8. Tattoos, Drugs And Nameless Blondes

**Chapter 8: ****Tattoos, Drugs ****And Nameless Blondes**

_Motel Room - 08:23 am. Davenport, Iowa. _

Sam rolled over in bed and opened his eyes to the bright sunlight that shone through the slightly agape curtains at the other side of the dank motel room. He threw an arm over his eyes and let out a deep sigh as he reluctantly pushed himself up from the warmth of his bed. Rubbing his eyes in an attempt to adjust them to the change of light, he glanced around the room. While Dean slept peacefully in the other bed, snoring lightly, Natalie was nowhere to be seen. He climbed out of bed and dragged his feet towards the open bathroom door, taking a quick look inside to establish that she wasn't in there either.

"Oh, crap." he muttered to himself.

If she had taken off again he was going to be more than pissed. But no, she wouldn't do that. Would she? Yesterday she had been all about helping him break Dean's demon deal, she had been right there ready to fight by their side and hunt with them again. She had made everything right with Dean and the two of them had walked back into the motel room looking more at peace with themselves than they had done the entire week. She wouldn't walk out on that. At least, he didn't think she would.

He could have been wrong about her. Truthfully, the majority of his opinion of her had been shaped by his brother, who had assured him even before they had met that she was, as he put it, a good kid. Dean had portrayed her to be the kind to never walk away from a fight, to stand by her family no matter what the odds, and Sam had thought that to be the truth—at least until then.

It was at that thought, just as he was about to wake up Dean and tell him that she was missing, that the motel door opened. Sam looked up to see Natalie standing in the doorway, a smile on her face as she looked him up and down, taking in his tired face and messed up hair. "Mornin' sunshine!" she said brightly.

Sam narrowed his eyes at her as she kicked the door closed behind herself. "Where were you?" he asked curiously, holding back the accusation from his tone.

Natalie glanced down at the tray of coffees in her left hand, and then to the bag of food in her right, and raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh, breakfast?" she replied, looking at him as if he was missing his brain. "Where did you think I'd gone?"

Sam just frowned, still seeming confused. "Huh." he shook his head, brushing it off, telling himself that he had just been being paranoid.

Natalie rolled her eyes at him and dropped the bag of food down to the table, putting his strange behaviour down to the fact he was probably still half asleep. "Here," she said as she took one of the coffee cups from the tray. "The half-caf, double vanilla latte that you never order anymore because Dean makes fun of you for it." Sam just continued to frown at her, looking more than completely lost. "And, waffles." she grinned, raising her eyebrows at him a couple of times as if it was the most exciting thing in the world. She couldn't hold back a laugh at the look on his face. "What?"

"I met you, what, not even a week ago." he said. "How'd you know about the coffee thing?"

Natalie scoffed, as if he should have already known the answer. "I know all about you, Sam Winchester." she said simply, sitting down in one of the chairs at the table.

Sam didn't move, appearing uneasy. "You do?" he pressed.

There was something about the smug and knowing look on her face that made him nervous—it almost remind him of the one Dean wore when he just _knew_ he had his kid brother beaten.

She looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow, as if he really was missing some huge and obvious point. "Yeah," she frowned. "What do you think Dean spent two years talking about?" Sam just looked at her, not seeming to know, to which she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You."

"Really?" Sam raised an eyebrow skeptically as he moved to sit down in the seat opposite hers.

"Yep." He watched her grab some food from the bag, not appearing even a little concerned about the look on his face, she was barely paying him any attention at all. She pulled out a newspaper from the bag and opened it up on the table, making room for her breakfast at the side. "Guarantee, ask me anything about you, I'll probably know it."

Sam huffed a laugh, deciding to take her up on it. "Alright, when's my birthday?" he challenged.

"Second of May, 1972." she replied, not even looking up from the newspaper as she answered. "Born on a Tuesday afternoon at 3:34. Dean was trying to watch Scooby-Doo when your Mom went into labour, said your dad took him to the crazy old lady down the street while he took your mom to the hospital."

Sam stared at her, eyes wide. "Huh," was all he could think to comment. She said it as though it was the most casual point in the world to make, as if he had asked her the weather. "Touche."

Natalie finally glanced up from the newspaper and once again chuckled at the look on his face. "I know everything about you, Sam. I know about your straight A report cards and about the time you got chicken pox when you were six. I know about you breaking your arm when you were five because you jumped off a shed dressed as Batman, I know about how you and Dean used to argue over who got the last bowl of Lucky Charms when you were kids, all the way down to your deadly fear of clowns and the nair in your shampoo. Trust me, if Dean knows it, he's told me."

"Wow." Sam commented simply. "I don't know whether to be impressed or freaked out."

"Oh," she chuckled. "Be afraid, Sam." she said bluntly, returning her attention to the paper. "Be very afraid."

Sam laughed, for the first time in what felt like forever, since Dean had made the deal for his life, or maybe before that, he genuinely laughed. And the sound was enough to pull Dean from his sleep, as though he could just sense the sound wasn't something he wanted to miss. He rolled over onto his back and groaned as he pushed himself to sit up, squinting as he looked between the two of them.

"I smell breakfast." he said flatly, the first clear thought in his head. "And coffee." Natalie rolled her eyes as he dragged himself from his bed and sat down in the empty seat with a heavy sigh, reaching for the coffee cup in the tray. He looked between the two of them slowly and narrowed his eyes a little. "Morning." he added, his voice still gruff.

"Morning." Natalie flipped the paper closed and sat back in her seat, taking a drink of her coffee. "So, what's the plan?" she asked lightly, raising her eyebrows at her clearly still half asleep brother.

Dean shrugged, took a drink of his coffee, and then looked back to her in disapproval. "What the hell did they do to you in prison?" he grumbled. "Since when were you such a morning person?" Natalie just smirked at him, saying nothing. "I dunno," he muttered, reaching for the bag of food on the table. "Find a hunt, I guess. Whatever."

Natalie looked up as her phone sounded in her jacket and pushed herself up from the table to get it. She flipped it open and raised an eyebrow at the text. "It's from Stephanie," she said.

Dean frowned. "Hey, is that hot one with the red hair?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, Dean, the hot one with the red hair." she smirked. "Shoulda known you'd remember her." Dean only grinned, nodding to himself. "She said turn on the news."

Sam also stood from where he sat and crossed the room, clearly curious, and turned on the tv, which came onto the news channel. He turned up the volume a little and stepped back enough that Dean and Natalie could also see the small screen.

"_The suspect in question, Natalie Scott, is seen here being escorted from a secure government facility by wanted convicts Sam and Dean Winchester, who are still being sought by police for numberous charges including murder and armed robbery." _The prison security camera footage of the three of them walking down one of the prison corridors came up as she spoke. _"Authorities are still unclear on whether the three are still acting together or not, but an investigation is being taken place to locate their whereabouts. The three suspects should be considered armed and dangerous and the public is being warned, that if they see or come into any contact with them, to call the police immediately." _Pictures of their mug shots came up onto the screen with contact numbers of who to call with information as the newsreader finished talking.

"Oh, crap." Natalie muttered, shaking her head at the screen.

She glanced over at Dean, now fully awake, who looked just as sick as she felt. "Crap is right." he said simply, seeming to be too far in his own thoughts to think up something better to respond with. "Guess you're not the only one on the run anymore." he sighed, pushing himself to stand. "And just when I thought we were out of the spotlight."

Natalie pulled a hand down her face, sighing heavily. "Guys," she shook her head. "I'm sorry for this."

Dean looked to her, seeing the guilt that was written all over her face, and shrugged. "Hey, look, it's not like we've never been wanted by the cops before." he said lightly. "It's not a big deal, don't worry about it."

"Dean's right," Sam nodded. "We'll just keep our heads down and get on with our job, we'll be fine. It all dies down after a few weeks anyway, take it from us."

Natalie forced a weak smile, unconvinced. "I don't wanna go back to prison." she muttered, more to herself than to them, as she dropped back down into her seat. "I'll run out of body parts to get tattooed." she added lightly.

Dean scoffed. "Nat, you've got an entire arm there with barely anything on it." he quipped, moving to sit down with her. The comment suddenly sparked a reminder in his mind, something that he had forgotten all about until then. "Hey, speaking of tattoos," he raised his eyebrows at her. "You up for getting another one?"

Natalie frowned. "Depends," she narrowed her eyes at him. "What of?"

Dean smirked at her and pulled down the front of his t-shirt, showing him where he had gotten his anti-possession tattoo. She raised her eyebrow and looked to Sam expectantly, who also pulled down his shirt to show her his.

"Huh." She looked between the two tattoos slowly and took another drink of her coffee. "You assume I want that tattooed on myself forever." she stated, obvious sarcasm in her tone.

"Well, Nat, looking at the _entire_ arm that you have covered top to bottom in ink, I didn't honestly think one more would bother you too much." Dean said lightly. "Besides, you're not officially part of the gang until you have the tat." he smirked at her. "Right, Sam?"

Sam shook his head. "Nope," he agreed. "'Fraid not."

Natalie gave a laugh and nodded. "Well, you gonna come hold my hand while I have it done?" she asked Dean sarcastically. "You know how I hate needles."

"Oh, I'm sure you do. Can't think of anything at all wrong with that statement." he chucked to himself. "So, you gotten anymore since the last time I saw you?" he asked. "Hiding away any new ones you don't wanna tell us about?"

She laughed at him, shaking her head. "Nah, they're all still the same, Dean, nothing new." she answered. "Oh, except, you know that horrific thing I had on my foot? I got that covered."

Dean scoffed. "About damn time." he said bluntly. "What'd you get?" She lifted up her foot and pulled off her right boot and sock, resting her foot on his knee so that he could get a look at it. There was a flower on the front of her foot, where her previous tattoo had once been, and a butterfly above it. It was shaded with a lilac colour and had short lines around it, curved at the ends. "Aw," Dean smiled. "That's cute, Nat."

"Yeah," she looked to Sam and smirked. "He used to complain like crazy about my last one, every time he painted my nails."

Dean shot her a look, clearly not amused.

"Wait," Sam suppressed a smirk of his own as he looked to his brother. "You used to paint her nails for her?"

"She makes it sound worse than it was." he said defensively.

"Uh-huh." he nodded as his eyes fell back to her foot, looking anything but convinced. "How many tattoos do you have?" Sam asked curiously.

"Uh," she thought for a moment and shook her head. "Surprisingly, not that many." she answered, pulling her boot back on. "Why? You wanna see 'em?"

Sam shrugged. "Sure." he nodded. "Why not."

"Well, obviously, there's my sleeve." she said as she pulled off her jacket, leaving her in just a white vest top. Sam hadn't looked at it properly before until then, but he noticed how detailed it was, without a single break anywhere to show skin. It went from the top of her arm to the bottom, stopping in a straight line around her left wrist. There were different designs, some more detailed than others. He noticed that there were flowers, butterflies, a snake, a skull, even some writing in another language in one place, on the inside of the top of her arm.

"Wow." he commented.

"I swear to god, Sam, never ask her to explain it all to you." Dean said lightly. "She goes on for hours."

Natalie chuckled at him. She remembered the time that the two of them had been stuck in a motel room with nothing to do, it had been a thunderstorm outside, leaving them no choice but to stay indoors. There had been no tv and no source of entertainment at all. Once he had gotten bored enough, Dean had asked her to tell him what all of her tattoos had meant, and he still remembered every single explanation of every inch of her arm—everything from the downright stupid to the more meaningful stories of what she had been through.

She held out her other arm to him. Halfway up her right forearm there was a tribal designed tattoo that went all the way around, as if it was a large bracelet. It wasn't too detailed, it didn't stand out that much, it made her arm look bare in comparison to her other.

"This was the first tattoo I ever got, right when I turned sixteen." Sam raised his eyebrows at her. "I got it in Juvy, some girl who called herself T-dog did it, needless to mention it got me a few extra weeks added to my sentence." she smirked. "And then there's this," she paused and stood up as pulled her vest halfway up her stomach so that it was tucked beneath her bra, showing off her torso. On her right hip there were two roses, both coloured with a vibrant red ink, with small and deep green leaves at the sides. "Got that one on my seventeenth birthday." she said lightly. "Could say I had a thing for flowers when I was a teenager, I guess."

Sam laughed, he hadn't really taken too much notice of any of them before then. "That all of them?"

He noticed her and Dean exchange a short glance, as if he was silently asking her if she was going to show him another one, but Natalie shook her head, turning to Sam.

"I've got one more." she said, her voice was no longer playful, it was almost serious. She turned around and lifted up her hair to show them the tattoo on her back. From the bottom of her neck to the middle of her shoulder blades, going down in a perfectly straight line, there was a line of arabic writing. Sam tilted his head to get a better look at it, as if he could understand what it meant.

"What does it say?" he asked, his voice was soft, as if he understood that it clearly meant something to her.

Natalie sat back down and cleared her throat. "I, uh," she paused for a second, thinking over her words. "It means always and forever. Me and Dylan got the same one the night we'd been together three years."

"You must really miss him." Sam said softly, his voice understanding with her in a way that not a lot of people had spoken to her before.

Natalie nodded slowly. "Yeah," she looked down at the table for a second and shrugged. "But it was a long time ago. It's fine." she smiled.

None of them said anything for a couple of minutes, all too lost in their own thoughts, before Dean pushed himself up from his chair. "I'm gonna take a shower, then we can hit the road." he said simply. He rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment and gave it a light squeeze before he headed off to the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind himself.

Sam watched her, she appeared to be miles away. There was a thoughtful frown on her face, as if she was seriously contemplating something in her head. He wondered how much she had really been through before she had started hunting with Dean. He had told him that she hadn't had a great upbringing, and that was clear from the way Natalie had spoken about it. But there seemed something about her, like there was more that still haunted her from her past, things that he had a feeling would never really leave her. Maybe they were things she would never want him to know, or maybe they were things that she hadn't even told Dean about, he didn't know.

"Hey, Sam?" she suddenly said, sounding tentative of whatever she wanted to say to him.

He snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at her. "Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something? And, you know, tell me to butt out if you don't wanna talk about it, but," she sighed, thinking over her words carefully. "You know yesterday, when you came to see me, you said you understood...about losing someone that you loved to the job."

Sam looked down for a second and took a deep breath. Her words had taken him by surprise, he hadn't expected that from her. She was obviously someone who took everything said to her to heart, she didn't forget things when they were important.

It wasn't something he would usually choose to talk about, but with her it didn't seem so bad. He knew that she understood, because she had been through the same thing. "Her name was Jess." he told her quietly. "And, uh, she died a couple of years back. I was at college with her, and I left for a weekend to go with Dean to find dad," he shook his head. "When I came back she was dead. The same demon that killed our Mom."

Natalie frowned. "And that's when you came back into hunting?"

Sam nodded slowly. "You loved him, right?" she looked up at him, not saying anything. "Dylan." Sam clarified. "You were in love with him?"

Natalie barely nodded. "Yeah," she admitted quietly, as if it were a hard thing to say. "I loved him. And I left him to go with Dean. I didn't see him again for two years and when I did—" she stopped herself, swallowing the lump in her throat. "That shouldn't have happened to him. And it was because of me."

Sam shook his head, remembering how hard he had found it to let go of the blame he placed on himself for Jess' death. It had taken him weeks, months even, to allow himself to realise that maybe he couldn't have saved her. That, yes, he should have done, but at that point in time, when he was away with Dean, he couldn't physically have stopped anything that happened to her, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Natalie—"

"Whatever way you look at it, whatever way you twist it around, that demon was there because of me." she said bluntly, not even giving him the chance to try and convince her otherwise. "And he got killed. I watched him die."

Sam sighed, there was no hiding it, what they'd had was obviously something serious. "How long were you together before, you know, you left?" he asked her.

Natalie thought about it for a few seconds and then looked back to him. "I met him when I was fourteen." she answered. "And, I don't know, I just kinda knew. He was the one." There was a hesitation in her words, like she had to carefully think through everything before she said it. "I get that it sounds stupid but we were together through everything, he said we'd always be like that. But when dad showed up and he said that I should start hunting with him and Dean...I just couldn't walk away from that, you know? So I left. I left him and I didn't look back." she huffed a laugh. "The girlfriend I had, the one I told you about, Taylor, one of the reasons she left me was because she said I loved him too much to even try and be with anyone else."

Something suddenly clicked in Sam's mind at her words, like a slap of realisation. "That's why you started using drugs." he said quietly. "It wasn't because she left you, it was because of him."

A small nod confirmed his suspicions. "It just hurt, _so_ much. And when I was on my own I just couldn't think about anything else. I wanted to forget about him, and I couldn't." she pulled a hand down her face to compose herself. "Can I tell you something? Something I never told Dean before."

Sam frowned a little. He couldn't imagine her keeping anything from Dean, he seemed to know every little detail of her life. In fact, he was sure that he did. "Sure."

"The week before my mom died, before dad came back and I left with him to hunt, he asked me to marry him." Sam's eyebrows shot up, that had been the last thing he had expected her to say. "I mean, I know we were young and everything, but," she shook her head. "I don't know. And I started to think to myself, maybe things could really change. Maybe I could be someone with a life, a family... But it didn't work out like that." she sighed. "It just doesn't go away, does it? It's always there."

Sam nodded slowly. "No, you're right." And then he realised something else, the two of them had more or less been in exactly the same situation. "You know, before Dean showed up at Stanford, I planned to ask Jess to marry me." Natalie's eyes moved up to his, they were now far away, shining slightly with emotion that she hadn't seen in him before. "I thought I'd really gotten away from this life. Guess I was wrong."

Until then, he had never understood how much pain she had truly experienced in her past, how much she had lost and how much she had left behind when she had hunted with Dean. He hadn't realised how much she pinned on herself and how much she clearly hated herself for what had happened to the person she had obviously been in love with. He couldn't imagine what she had been through in those days when she had been alone and things got really dark. Because he had always had Dean there.

After Jess had died, Sam had Dean. When he woke up in the middle of the night after having a nightmare, Dean was there to comfort him. He had a brother there to tell him that everything was going to be okay, he had someone with him to remind him to carry on when he was feeling at his lowest. She hadn't. He couldn't even think where his grief would have left him if Dean hadn't been there to keep him on track, and it hurt him to think that, if circumstances had been different, she could have had him there for support, too.

"You know, Natalie, I blamed myself for so long because of what happened to Jess, I mean, I just wanted to have a normal life so bad. And I know that I should've told her what I did, and that I should've protected her from it all. Hell, maybe I should've just stayed away in the first place," he shook his head slowly, they weren't thoughts he wanted to indulge. "But, the point is, you shouldn't blame yourself for what happened to him."

"You wanted to have a normal life." she pondered, remembering when Dean had first told her about where his brother really was. He wanted a job, a wife and kids, the whole nine. He wanted safety away from the job. "You know, I've never had that. I've never had a family around who loves me, I've never had parents there for me or anything like that, but," she shrugged lightly. "I don't think it's me. I don't think I could live like that, you know? Same thing every day forever, staying in one place for the rest of my life.."

None of it appealed to her. Sometimes, back when she had been a teenager living the way she had done, she had wished to be one of those kids who went home to loving parents in a nice house with a dog and a white picket fence. But then she had met Dean, and he had shown her a whole new way to live. He showed her that there was so much more out there to see and do, there was more to life than staying in one town for the rest of her life. And once she and him had gone their separate ways she had kept that in mind and she had travelled to every country she had always wanted to. Take away the heroin loaded suitcases and drug money, she had pretty much just been another backpacker. But even then, her heart had never completely left hunting. Deep down she always knew that it had been inevitable that she would end up back in it someday.

"I'm not sure that I could live like that anymore, either." Sam agreed, giving a small sigh. "I wish that I'd known you a long time ago, Natalie."

"Yeah," she nodded. "Me, too."

When Dean had first told Sam that they had a sister he hadn't known what to expect. And then when he had learned more about her, from what Dean had told him, he hadn't been sure what things would be like between them. He hadn't expected her to so easily, so effortlessly, fall into the routine he and Dean had been in for years. She just merged in with them in a way that could make outsiders think she had been there forever. They had clicked so well, they had so much more in common than he could have ever thought, he wouldn't change anything.

"Alright," he was pulled from his thoughts as she suddenly pushed herself up from where she sat. Every sign of emotion or vulnerability had vanished from her features. "I'm gonna head out, I've got some things I need to do."

"You what?" Sam frowned, a little confused. He couldn't imagine what she had to do in a town she'd been in less than twenty-four hours. "Things like what?"

"It's nothing important." she shrugged it off like it wasn't a big deal to her and grabbed her jacket from the bed. "I'll see you later."

Before Sam could even think to put up an argument, she turned on her heel and headed out of the door, not looking back. He noticed that she had waited until Dean was out of the room before she had told him that she was going anywhere, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe she thought that Dean would have pushed her harder for answers and demanded to know where she was going, which he had a feeling he might have done. But that only made him think, if she was going somewhere that she already knew Dean wouldn't approve of, where was she going?

He couldn't shake the suspicion that she was up to something, or that she was doing something that she didn't want anyone else to know about. Something about that made him feel a little uneasy, he didn't know what kind of stuff she got up to when they weren't together, but from what Dean had told him about her, he had a feeling that when she started to sneak around it wasn't going to be anything good.

* * *

_11:34 am, Diner. _

It had been three hours and neither Sam or Dean had seen or heard from Natalie since she had bailed earlier that morning. Dean had obviously been pissed about Sam just letting her walk out on them without saying where she was going, but Sam had quite simply told him that she hadn't been waiting around long enough to tell him where she was intending to go, or what she was intending to do. She had walked out before he had the chance to say anything more to her.

At a loss for what to do, the two of them had headed to a diner later on, more due to Dean's bordem and love of food than anything else, and gotten some lunch. Neither of them mentioned Natalie. Sam spent most of the time talking about new ways he had thought up of breaking Dean's demon deal, suggesting people they could see or places that they could check out for leads, but Dean plainly dismissed all of them with sarcastic comments, sounding as though he couldn't care less where they went.

Sam took a drink of his coke and gave a small sigh as he looked around the busy diner, shaking his head a little to himself. He couldn't work it out. He didn't understand why Natalie even felt like she had to sneak around. It wasn't as though he and Dean really had the power to stop her from doing anything, she was an adult, they had no control over her, he wouldn't have wanted them to. Well, saying that, maybe _he_ didn't, but he didn't know how much control Dean still held over her. He had a feeling that back when they had hunted together Dean had been in charge, mostly because he was the one who knew what he was doing, he was the one training her, he was the one who made the big decisions, but things were different now. She wasn't a teenager, she was a hunter, and a good one. Even Dean had said she was more than capable of hunting. Sam had witnessed it himself when they had taken on the seven deadly sins, she could keep herself alive just fine. But all of that still wasn't enough to silence the nagging concern in the back of his mind.

He dragged himself back from his thoughts as someone dropped down into the otherwise empty booth across from him. He looked up from his plate of food, expecting to see Dean, and came face to face with a blonde woman, the same one he had a sneaking suspicion he had seen on the street of their last hunt, before she had shown up to take out three demons that had cornered him there. But, after the hunt, he had diminished any concerns he'd had about her and gone after Natalie, putting her as the main priority.

"Hello, Sam." she said slowly, a small smile curved at the side of her pink lips as her eyes wandered over him.

Sam narrowed his eyes at her a little, suspiciously. He glanced over at the men's bathrooms, hoping that Dean wasn't about to burst out and start asking questions he didn't have the answer to, before turning his attention to her. "You've been following me since Lincoln." he stated simply, his tone telling her that it would be a waste of time trying to deny it.

She casually took one of the fires from his plate and smirked at him. "Not much gets by ya, huh?" she smirked, taking a bite. "Hmm. These are amazing. It's like deep-fried crack. Try some."

Sam scoffed, giving a quick look around them to make sure that no one was within hearing distance. "That knife you had," he leaned in a little, getting straight to the point. "You can kill demons with that thing?"

"Sure comes in handy when I have to swoop in and save the damsel in distress." she said bluntly, reaching across the table for an empty cup and taking the saucer from beneath it.

"Where did you get it?" Sam asked curiously.

"Skymall." The girl replied flatly, to which Sam just rolled his eyes with impatience.

He watched in disbelief as she grabbed the bottle of ketchup from the side of the table and squirted a large heap onto the saucer in front of her, a small grin on her face. "Why are you following me?" he asked her.

"I'm interested in you." she replied lightly.

Sam just frowned at her. "Why?" he pressed, fast becoming annoyed.

"Because you're tall." she replied sarcastically. "And I love a tall man." she paused for a second and took another bite of the fry. "And then there's the whole antichrist thing." she added casually. "You know, generation of psychic kids, yellow-eyed demon rounds you up, celebrity death match ensues." she looked up and nodded. "You're the sole survivor." she grabbed his glass and took a drink of his coke.

If he hadn't been lost before, he sure as hell was now. "How do you know about that?" he asked, turning defensive.

"I'm a good hunter." she replied bluntly, placing the glass back down on the table in front of him. "So, yellow eyes had some pretty big plans for you, Sam." she stated, sitting back against the booth behind her and folding her arms over her chest.

"_Had_ being the key word." he countered sharply.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Ding-dong, the demon's dead." she said in a playful voice. "Good job with that. But, it doesn't change the fact that you're special, in that Anthony Michael Hall E.S.P. visions kinda way."

"No." Sam stopped her firmly. "That stuff's not happening anymore. Not since yellow-eyes died."

"Well, I'm thinking you're still a pretty big deal." she went on. "I mean, after all that business with your mom—"

"What about my mom?" Sam cut her off.

"You know, what happened to her friends.." It was as if, from the failed attempt at a poker face, she could read that he didn't have the faintest clue what she was talking about. "You don't know..." she said slowly, narrowing her eyes at him. Sam still said nothing, now praying to god that Dean didn't come back while she was there. "You've got a little bit of catching up to do my _friend_. So," she grabbed his hand and began to write a phone number down on it. "Why don't you look into your mom's pals, and then give me a call and we'll talk again?" she looked up and flashed him a smile before getting up and walking out of the diner, just as Dean came heading back towards the table.

Sam gave a quick glance down at his hand. Above the phone number was a name. Ruby. He sighed and returned his attention to the plate of food in front of him until Dean dropped down with a heavy sigh.

"Hey." Sam said casually, playing down any emotion. "You good?" he asked, suddenly getting to his feet as if he was ready to leave. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, clearly confused, but said nothing. "Good." he muttered. "Let's go."

All Sam knew was that he needed to get back to the motel room and check out what the mysterious blonde girl had told him. He needed to know what she had meant about his mom and her friends, he needed answers. The main consensus between them had been to head back to the motel room and see if Natalie had shown up again yet, which is what Dean figured Sam was suddenly so anxious about, but something else caught Sam's eye as they headed out of the diner, something that suddenly changed his train of thought. "Hey," he grabbed a hold of Dean's sleeve before he could walk off anywhere. He nodded over the road at something. "Is that Natalie?"

Dean turned quickly and narrowed his eyes in the direction that Sam was looking. "Yeah, it is." he frowned. She was walking down the street, busying herself on her phone, not noticing the two hunters standing over the road and staring at her. Dean pulled out his phone and called her number, more because he had a feeling that she wouldn't answer it than anything else. Sure enough, when the phone began ringing in her hand she came to a stop, looking a little unsure as to what she should do, he noticed her thumb hover above the phone for a moment before she declined the call and carried on down the sidewalk. "What the hell is she doing?"

Sam shook his head slowly, at a loss, as he watched her climb into a black car. "Don't know." he answered simply.

Dean thought for a second, he wanted to know. "Come on."

Before Sam could even react his brother was already heading straight for the Impala. "You're not serious." he stated.

"Get in the car or I'll leave your ass here. Your choice." Dean threw back, climbing into the car and slamming the door closed behind himself. Sam groaned inwardly and did as he said, getting into the car beside his brother.

"What the hell are we doing?" Sam asked, almost unsure he wanted to know the answer.

"She's sneaking around, Sam." he replied defensively, throwing the car into gear. "I know her, and when Natalie starts to sneak around it only means one thing; she's up to something. And with the people that she was involved with, I wanna know why."

Sam looked to him and raised an eyebrow. "You mean you don't trust her?"

Dean scoffed. "Of course I trust her." he countered, like the idea of anything different was just ludicrous. "It's the people she knows that I don't trust. If she's screwing around with them again, I wanna know why, because it's never good. She'll end up getting herself killed."

Sam still wasn't satisfied. "So, you're gonna make us follow our own kid sister? Don't you think that's a little dishonest?"

"I'm not making you do anything." Dean commented simply. "And, it's not exactly following her if we're already here, is it? We just happen to be driving the same way, and far enough back that she won't notice." he gave an innocent shrug and turned his eyes back to the road ahead.

Sam sighed, shaking his head. "You're unbelievable."

Dean just rolled his eyes at him. They followed her for about fifteen minutes before she came to a stop. Sam and Dean looked between each other, equally confused. There was nothing around, the area was completely secluded. There was another car parked to the side of the road with a man leaning against the trunk. He wore a leather jacket and black jeans, his arms were folded tightly over his chest as if to prove that he meant business. From where they were parked they couldn't really see much of what was going on, but the two of them appeared to be in a pretty serious conversation.

Sam could see the concern that Dean had about the whole thing. It didn't look good. She was sneaking around behind their backs, meeting up with people like him and keeping it from them. He was starting to think that she really was up to something.

No longer than five minutes after she had gotten out of the car, the man handed her an envelope and she had gotten straight back in and taken off up the highway again, heading back to town. Sam and Dean said nothing as they once again started the car and headed back to their motel.

* * *

_30 Minutes Later, Motel room. _

Natalie headed inside the motel room to find both her brothers sitting in what felt to be a tense silence. Neither spoke a word as she walked in, making her feel a little uneasy. Sam gave a quick glance up from the book he was reading as the door closed behind her but said nothing, as if he was waiting for either her or Dean to be the one to break the silence.

Dean swung his legs over the edge of the bed and heaved a sigh, pushing himself up to stand. "Nice day?" he asked casually as he crossed the room towards the small fridge and grabbed himself a beer.

Natalie frowned a little, clearly confused by their behaviour. "What?" The question honestly took her by surprise a little.

"Where've you been?" he pressed a little firmer, she knew he was silently telling her that he wasn't in the mood to take any lies. But she wasn't in the mood to explain everything to them.

"I, uh, I went to do some shopping. You know, checked out some stores, that kinda thing." she shrugged nonchalantly and dropped her bag down onto one of the beds. "Nothing exciting."

At that, Dean scoffed. There was a frown on his face that meant he clearly didn't believe her. "You've been where?" he asked her incredulously. "Natalie, you don't shop. Hell, Sam shops more than you do."

"Yeah, well, I felt like doing some shopping, alright?" she replied defensively. "Is that such a crime?"

"Hmm." Dean nodded slowly. He didn't even understand why she tried to lie to him, he could see right through her, every single time. "And, yet, you come back with no bags."

That seemed to momentarily stun her but she quickly recovered herself. "Didn't see anything I liked." she countered.

"No, I wouldn't imagine you would where you've been." he said, there was nothing but accusation in his voice. "Not many stores there."

Natalie narrowed her eyes at him. "Have you been following me?" Dean said nothing, to which she just gave a small laugh. "You know what, I'm not hiding anything from you, Dean. Why don't you keep your accusations to yourself, huh? Yes, I had some stuff to do, but it in no way concerns you right now."

Dean took a long drink of his beer and shook his head at her. "If you're weren't hiding anything you wouldn't be lying about where you're going." he told her bluntly. "Just meeting up with a friend for a chat were you?"

"Oh, for the love of—" she stopped herself and took a deep breath. "I didn't tell you where I was going because I knew you wouldn't let me go alone, and I wasn't about to start another fight with you because, honestly, I don't need it. You wanna know why I was meeting him?" she opened up her bag and pulled out the envelope she had been handed earlier, shoving it at his chest for him to grab it.

Dean frowned and opened it, his eyes went wide at the sight. "Natalie, there's like fifteen grand in here."

"Well, I guess that means you don't have to hustle any pool for a while, do you? And since now we're all on the run from the cops, figured a bit of extra money could come in handy. I mean, you never know when you're gonna have to bribe someone, right?" she said lightly, passing him towards the bathroom as though she thought that was the end of the conversation. "You're welcome."

Sam gave a skeptical look and slowly pushed himself up from his chair. "Where the hell does this money keep coming from?"

She stopped where she was and huffed a laugh, turning back to face him. "Don't worry, I didn't steal it if that's what you're thinking." she muttered, but he just raised his eyebrows, clearly not satisfied with her answer. "It's mine. The guy I used to work for owed it to me. Call it _extremely_ light compensation for the time I did because of him. Deal goes it's a grand per month, so there's thirteen grand in there. Plus, the five I got upfront the other day."

Dean frowned at her. "The five you left in my car, you mean?"

"Yeah, call that a gift for your generous hospitality." she deadpanned.

Dean looked up at her, and then to Sam, whose eyes were as wide as his own. "I love her." he said simply, to which Sam just scoffed. "Man, I freakin' love her."

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna take her shower."

Dean quirked an eyebrow at her. "Wait, you're trusting me with this?" he asked, gesturing to the money in his left hand.

"Well, what do you think I'm gonna do with it?" she asked, not seeming concerned. "All our money goes to the same place, Dean; dive motels and bad take out food. It's not like you're gonna steal money from us, is it?" she shrugged. "Besides, maybe we can start staying in motel rooms that aren't practically falling apart, you know?" she turned her attention to the roll of wallpaper beside the bathroom door that was pretty much falling from the wall. "Five star motels are a guaranteed way to get you laid, Dean."

Dean just rolled his eyes at her. "I'm sure." he mumbled.

Sometimes he just didn't understand her. There were moments when he forgot about the whole other life she had lived before she had become a hunter, before she had come back to the life. There was stuff in her past that he couldn't even begin to understand. It was still sinking in that she had been involved in drug dealing, and now she was disappearing off for hours and coming back with thousands of dollars. He believed her when she said she was done, he really did, but there was always the sneaking concern in the back of his head that one day she would go back to that life, and he knew that it wasn't a safe one to live. There were people out there still out for her neck, still looking for revenge, she wasn't safe, that he was sure of. There were so many people in that line of work that she had gotten herself on the wrong side of, it concerned him to think about it. Honestly, he preferred her to be hunting.

"Hey," Sam stopped her again before she could disappear through the bathroom door. "That's it though, right?" he asked. "You're done with it all now? No more drug dealing, no more money, no more secret meetings with dangerous guys."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm completely done. I swear, I'm never going back to that life."

With that, she turned and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind herself. Sam gave a sigh, he couldn't shake the feeling that seemed to be following him around. He couldn't pretend like he wasn't still concerned about her, even though she was standing in front of him perfectly fine. He didn't know what it was, but it was something that hadn't gone unnoticed.

"What's up with you?" Dean frowned a little, there was a wariness that showed clearly on his face. "She said she's done, Sam. She's gonna be fine."

"Yeah." Sam nodded. He knew that, he did, and he trusted her, but he couldn't shake the feeling. "I know she's okay." He looked to Dean, and their eyes met for a moment. "So, why am I still so worried about her?"

Dean huffed a small laugh and clapped his brother on the shoulder as he passed him. "Because, that's what it feels like to be a big brother, Sammy." he chucked. "Welcome to the club."

* * *

_Thank you for reading and for reviewing the last chapter!_

_So, this chapter, Sam's starting to become a little bit of an overprotective big brother to __Natalie—is that something that's going to bring them closer or something that's going to cause conflict in the future? And__ Sam has finally met Ruby, which he has yet to explain to Dean and Natalie. Next chapter there's going to be some sibling bonding, some Dean/Natalie banter__ (because I know you all love that)__ now they finally have their relationship back on the right track, and then I'll be back to getting on with season three which I'm very excited about!_

_Oh, also, I don't know if you can tell or not from the picture for the story, I based the looks of Natalie on the character Alex Vause from 'Orange Is The New Black' who is played by __the very talented __Laura Prepon. I put up some links to a few gifs/pictures of her in my bio incase you want to get a better idea of her look. And also (since my good friend and editor, loveintheimpala, is __obsessed__with tattoos) after there was the conversation at the beginning of this chapter about Natalie's tattoos, I put on some links to show some tattoos that she would have in my bio, too. So maybe check those out as well if you're interested._

_And, if you ever want to know anything else about her, if you think I've left like an important detail about her out, then feel free to PM me and ask, I'll probably end up working it into the story somewhere__, maybe as a flashback or even as a oneshot__. Like, for example, the other week I had a PM asking me about how she arranged with John that she would hunt with him and Dean in the first place, which is why I put in the flashback, I think in chapter four, about it. And I was asked__ last week__ something about her and Bobby__'s relationship__ which I am currently writing a oneshot about__, that w__ill__ also__ be up soon!_

_But again, thank you so much for the reviews and the support, it means so much! Have an amazing week, guys! Hopefully see you next chapter! :-)_


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